Leaping
by counselor
Summary: Bella has a cabin on the beach for three weeks. He uses a Victorian built by his grandfather. He's numbed by trauma...and he's drifting. He's no hero, but she won't agree. They meet, but is it chance or design? It's loneliness, it's lust, it's anger, it's desperate. It's a risk, it's betrayal...it's hope...it's love...but it's fragile. It's a leap.
1. Chapter 1

Leaping

Alone on the beach, walking, walking on the edge of land and sea, a dead jellyfish, a gull and its flap and its cry, and gray water swirling into gray sky and breathing the salty damp and his hair stiff with it, and his face painted with it, and his white clothes pressing against his flesh, the wet holding them to him like transparent skin.

And he saw the speck of another's approach. He hated the intrusion into all the gray, the flannel of his existence. a speck, a she no less, with hair blowing and Picasso lines and sand daring to verify, she was real.

Slow rise and her head turned to the ocean, then looking down, then looking up. Was she The Dreamer come to life? For him she was. And so….

She glided, and a skirt blowing and a sash, blue, directing the water's crash and rush…and when she got near, so near he saw the flair of her nostrils and the tremor in the tight bow of her upper lip…and he knew she was going to smile, just smile, a flash, a click, for all time… hello…good-bye.

And he stopped and said, "I'm…Edward Cullen."

And he was. He'd forgotten, but that didn't take it away…the truth.

She stopped.

"I'm…I live up there," and he thumbed toward the three storied Victorian his grandfather Douglas built. And he, Edward, had been sent here by his concerned aunt who knew he needed a place to shed his snakeskin, to come up pink and ready to try again.

"I was…it's so gray," she said, her voice soothing against the careless waves, their heavy sloshing power, but her voice floating.

"You're sad," he whispered.

She smiled and started to continue her walk and he turned and followed the direction she went, toward his house, his home.

Side by side now, and he watched their feet, all bare, and hers, and his, and she looked back, over her shoulder and he saw it too, the ocean's lick working to erase, to erase them.

"I'm Bella," she said, drawing him back.

And he had nothing to give that could come close, she already had his name.

"Are you here for the winter?" he asked because he could be proper if it came to it.

"I'm here for three weeks," she said. "I…will resent you…so you know…now that we've spoken."

He didn't comment right off…too many things.

"You resented me first, though," she said.

"I…I'm just walking," he said, but he thought, my god.

"You're private. I'm intruding. Now you're…escorting me?"

"It's on my way," he defended.

And so they neared his house…his life.

She finally spoke, "What if we go through the whole process…and the last night we dare to get honest and real and discover we really like each other and we wasted all this time?"

She stopped walking…she waited for him to respond. He hadn't left the confines of quiet. Until he'd met her on his path.

"But you can't just leap to the end of the story like that," she said, as if to retract.

"You can…leap to the end," he said, thinking of the piles of books in his room, opened like tents, a tent-city spread across his floor, words and stories living in them…him reading the last page only, one night stands….

She led now, away from the water…following his tracks, the new ones, and the old ones, from too many walks like this and him returning without a catch…she put her little feet in his big footed impressions, and she muddled the course of his life….

She took in a breath before taking on the stairs leading to his house. It was imposing, he knew, in competition with the sea and with nothing around it, for it was a sizeable piece of land that came along with, and those who would seize it for development didn't have enough, couldn't find enough.

So he followed her there, and he saw this house completely differently now.

"I wondered about this place," she said, leading him onto the huge wrap-around porch.

She went in first, and he followed her long skirt, as it sailed his moors, his threshold. He was her guest. This house was splendid…and neglected. Not from dirt…it was cleaned three times a week…Mrs. Cope. But from life. It had no life.

He hadn't noticed before, just that it was large, that it cried out to accommodate so much more, so many more. Would it draw her where he couldn't?

Her hair was long, down her back, a mermaid's hair. What if she was? A mermaid?

She turned to him, and the color in her face, the light, the awakening of this place…"I don't see you yet…your room. I need to see your room."

He shook his head. He had no idea…he didn't allow Mrs. Cope in there.

"Up…." he whispered, and the grand sweeping staircase rolled down into the center of this great room like the house had a tongue, she was already running there, skirt pulled tight in the back over a shapely round rump as she'd raised and gathered the light fabric and her legs flashed cream and the bottoms of her feet were a dark pink and he sprang to life and followed.

She went down the left side of the landing, looking room to room, and he panted from his run on the stairs, and she found his room at the end and she called out and he went in after and she was in the middle of the room, spinning round, looking at the books, their spines, their flapped covers. "There's so many," she cried. "Oh," and she went to them, one and the other, but she did not try to save them or pick them from the floor or close them, she wanted their names, and she let them be, gulls with wings spread, dying on the beach, his floor, each cawing, a story, a story, a story.

She faced him. "You're…," she said softly, her hands gathered under her chin.

He didn't know what he was…but her….

"I'll come tonight. We'll meet on the beach."

He shook his head no. He didn't know. "Yes," he whispered.

She walked quickly to him, and his heart…he felt it move, and he smelled her skin, the salt on it. "I…I don't know if we'll leap…to the end."

He didn't know either…or anything.

"Well…good-bye," and she smiled, and he let her go for three seconds and he followed and she was already half-way to the stairs.

He called out, "Wait."

She turned to him, such beauty.

"I…what time?"

"Dark," she said. Then light as a wisp, her skirt vibrating around her legs, she descended, the tongue, and went out.

He wouldn't go. She was obviously mental and he didn't want this. It was his refuge and she'd come inside…he couldn't have this.

But he met her hours later. He was first. He told himself it's what he did, walking there. It's what he did and he wouldn't stop for her. So he met her in almost the same place and like before she approached, only this time she hurried to him. "Hello," and she took his hand and he turned and she pulled him toward his house.

All the while he was quiet. She was beautiful. He'd not been remiss in what he knew when he'd first seen her. She was lovely.

She hurried up the stairs to his porch and he followed, like a boy, an eager boy. She hurried to his room, and he followed. "What are you doing?" he said, but even he heard the lack of conviction.

She turned to him, letting the cloth bag she carried drop to the floor. "We're to the end…the end," she said, in the center of his room, and the books he'd stacked against the wall, and she untied the knot at her side and her dress opened and she let it fall from her shoulders, and slide down her arms and her bare skin and feminine form, her beauty, and, "My god," he said again.

She was crazy. Crazy and astounding. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, almost pleading with her.

"It's the end. We'll work our way backwards. We'll start here, and we'll move to the point we were at this morning…when we met…and smiled…and you said your name…and then beyond to where we don't know one another at all. By then I'll be gone. Three weeks."

"Why?"

"I'm here," she whispered, stepping to him, her hands lifting to rest on his chest, her face, breath soft. "Leap," she said. "Leap with me. You like endings. Like your books."

But…he didn't know her. So how could he leap….

"Pretend," she whispered.

And she looked at his lips as she raised on her toes and her lips, slowly against his own, kiss, and the whispered word, "Leap," and he closed his eyes, not that he wanted to, but it was right enough and real enough, and she was flesh and soft and round and willing…and warm…and kind.

He had never…leapt…in flesh. And his hands on her pulling her in…and another kiss, and he fell into it now, leaned into her, then she pulled back and led him to his bed.

He stood and she undressed him and he looked at her, all of her…leaping. He took off his pants and she removed his underwear, and then she took his hand and laid down on his bed, and just that…he lay beside, and they looked a one another for a long time, and he touched her then, and moved his hand all over her skin.

The next kiss went deep and he was gone, flying and floating and burning up. He brought her up, to sit atop him, and he pulled her forward and moved her back, she moved then, yes he wanted her on him…it…on him, streaking him, painting him with her sweet scent, her wet response, her seeping need…leaping.

When it was time…he took her, he laid her beneath him, he filled her, he reached frenzy with her that culminated in breath, in clawing gasp, in release, oh my god.

Then tender fulfillment, and he dropped beside her and pulled her to him. "Thank you," he whispered.

"Thank you," she laughed, tamed and still and supple flesh, and the shadows on the ceiling and the dark gray beyond and they stilled and they were as the ocean lifted them, lifted the house, and they floated…they swayed….

And the next thing he knew he was awakening and the gulls and sunlight, and the heavy roll of the sea, and his mind and memory sparked and the bed empty and just a note and one word, hyphenated, good-bye.

And so it was the end. And the beginning of the almost end. Day two.


	2. Chapter 2

Leaping 2

What was he before now? Looking…but feeling more than seeing. He was not in the present…he was blind.

Where had he been? There was nothing to point to, just the tracks she had invaded. There were no accomplishments beyond the walking.

It's what he did now, wearing the same clothes as the day before, the ones she had helped him remove or removed altogether.

It wasn't lust, but that was involved. It was desperate, sick, demanding…shattering.

He didn't need her thoughts, her facts, her words. He needed everything else.

So after he'd awakened and dealt with her absence…he'd stepped into the ocean, the water cold and foamy with impatience, and he let the water take her taste from his skin and replace it with a thousand other bits of life and death and god and devil. He stood in the water wearing only his pants, and his fingers wide and battered about with the force of the water, and he stood there until the freezing took over and the shuddering, the punishing, the beautiful miserable abuse that meant he was alive.

He started to walk. His teeth chattered, and his hair was plastered in a heavy flap that slapped over his forehead and he pushed it back but it didn't stay, it wouldn't.

And he waited for her, surely she would come…back.

He got further this time. Nearly to the cabins, the place he never wanted to reach, stopped before he did, lest they see him and wave…and expect.

She was right. He'd resented her first. His anonymity…gone. "I'm Edward Cullen," he'd said. And from there, the second story…his room…his books…his bed…his dick…his sounds and his despair.

He'd slept. And he'd awakened. Where was she? Where was she with this stupid game?

She came out then, on her stoop. Her cabin was the first, away from the others but too close, still. She must have seen his approach from her window. She wore a cotton dress and a sweater over. Feet bare. Scarf in her hair.

She hadn't expected him…at all…and in his pants…only.

He walked closer.

"I have coffee," she said, but no smile.

She turned to go in, waited holding the door wide, and he followed.

It was small in here, but not without appeal. Her. That was the appeal. There were drawings on the wall…colored chalk. This was more than he wanted. He couldn't breathe in here.

"Sit," she said and he went to one of two blue kitchen chairs and he sat, and there were newspapers on the table, stacked and used, and he kept himself away from them and their black blood.

"Do you take it black? Do you want cream?" she asked.

Here's what he wanted, he sat up, raised up and took her by the arm and when he fell back to the chair she came with him, and he pulled her onto his lap and tore off her sweater and ran his hands over her breasts…here was what he wanted…all he wanted…and he had his hand in her hair, he felt the knot on her scarf and he pulled this off and his hand buried in her hair now, and her head in his hand and her hair spilling over his arm, and he crushed his lips to hers. Oh soft and warm and wet and…here was what he wanted.

She was limp, not resisting, not turning him away, and he insisted with his mouth, his kiss, he insisted she come to life and give him life, and he kissed her, and she was open, open and she leaned back and he wrapped his arm around her back, but she leaned away and they went to the floor and he was barely aware of how, but they were there on the linoleum, and he had her then, his hands under her dress and on her and her on him and the kiss, the kiss, and he pulled from her as he tried to give to seek to know her his hands moving all over her body, her sweet body that conformed and opened and kept him as close, as close, and he was inside her, and she was on top, and he was frantic and wild and wondering where this life had been hiding, but he couldn't get to it without her, and she stilled him and he tried to calm as he laid there and she kept her hand over his heart and she looked at him, into him, and he needed this almost as much as her flesh. He needed her to look at him and not run.

"I'm doing this because of all I know about you," she said and he wanted to trust her…wanted it more than he remembered wanting anything…since….

"The…the newspapers?" he panted for he did not understand.

"No. What I know from all we've shared…through all the days we've spent together."

Oh. The crazy. She was crazy. They'd just met. But they were leaping. He forgot.

"Don't talk," he said and he raised and caught her mouth in another kiss, a frantic, rhythmic last chance kiss that she returned now, and she moved and they rolled and she was beneath, and he spread over her, like a building storm, then he penetrated her easy, easy, yes, inside, pushing himself in and along her body's soft velvet grasp, and it hurt to feel so completely taken by hope and good and…Bella. "Bella."

He had given her something, and she was quiet as she stilled and clenched and he gave her this stream of hot sorrow that broke free to seek some kind of eternity, far away from him.

When it was over he felt shame. He felt shame for taking so much. For reducing her to the impossible task of jumpstarting his will…and on the floor.

He moved off of her. She stayed put. Had she been crying? "Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"No," she said, looking away.

He sat up and felt the wild hair he hadn't had cut in too long, and she did not move, not even to pull her dress to respectable length. He had consumed her.

So he straightened the dress, covered her private self at least. "I'm sorry," he whispered, her thigh soft.

"For?" She found her scarf on the floor and wiped her face.

"This, of course," he said tersely. He hated stupid explanations…to make them.

"It's alright," she whispered, a smile of all things. "Tomorrow you say thank-you."

"Tomorrow?" There was no future in this.

"Yes. Moving backwards…I can see in to the future." She smiled so beautifully. He grazed her cheek with the back of his finger.

"There's no tomorrow," he said.

"It's already happened. Last night…was tomorrow."

"Stop," he whispered. "Just…stop."

"We can't stop," she said. "We put it in motion. We leapt. There are events which have led to this…and now we have to live them out. Remember…the pages you don't read…remember?"

Well he'd heard enough. He got up then, like an old man, and he righted his pants, and they were cold and wet and he must look like an animal.

"It's because of what you've been through."

"I haven't been through anything. I don't like your game. This was a mistake," he said and he went to her sink and there was a colander and potato peelings. He used the glass there and filled it and drank and his lies wouldn't go down. He set the glass in place as he heard her move from the floor behind him.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

"There's nothing to be sorry for," she said, and he felt her hand on his shoulder. He let his head sag then. She was a stranger. This was madness.

He moved away, to the door. "I won't…." he said, then he went out.

He walked with quick purpose, down her porch, across the sand, along the path he'd made there. It was going sour, sour, and if it did…there was nothing…and he knew that…he'd accepted it…and she'd crashed into the gray…still…fog…and she was killing him.

She did not follow, she did not call out, "Stop." And that cut him most of all…the words he did not need. Before now.

He would go home. He'd lock his door. He was done.

But he had not gone far when she came after. He stopped then and waited for she'd called out and he could take in the air…finally.

She reached him, holding a shirt, a man's blue one. She was already pulling it up his arms. She moved so quickly…too quick for him…not quick enough.

She was buttoning it, a satisfied look, her deep dark eyes darting to his, the sweet lip turned in a smile. Was this mercy? He wanted it. More. He was sick.

"After today…no more."

"Tonight then?" she said. "Don't tell me. I'll come to you. If you send me home I'll know what this morning was."

"What was it? Fucking on a cabin floor?"

She smoothed over his shoulders, the hurt in her eyes. "Not for me."

"What then? You don't even know me."

"I do…and I will. Didn't you mean it? What happened between us…wasn't it real?"

"As I remember…I left evidence."

"I mean…it's powerful…between us." She let her hands drop.

"It is what it is. I'm sorry you had some other idea of it. I'm at fault. I never should have…."

"Don't," she said with such intensity it worried him.

But he understood something. She needed this…illusion…as much as he needed her…and that was powerful.

He cupped her face, her lovely face, with his big hands, and he searched her eyes and ran his thumbs over her cheeks.

"I…don't know if you're sent by god or the devil," he laughed softly, and the despair….

"It ended in love-making. That's what everything we have left leads to."

Was she crazy? "What do you want from me…really?"

"Tonight," she whispered.


	3. Chapter 3

Leaping 3

She was in his head. He tried to read…to be…to do something. Mrs. Cope came to clean the house that didn't need to be cleaned. It was her job, she said when he suggested…perhaps…less often.

He withdrew. When she left he went in the kitchen, he knew how to make a salad. Did Bella eat meat? She was thin…her bones…fragile. He felt something inside of her…body…he'd had the training…his hands laid on every kind of flesh, every kind of joy and despair in the skin, muscle, blood, the face the voice the posture the air…and all the stops in between, and he looked at his hands, too soft, too knowing, too willing…too resistant…and now this woman…Bella.

Surrender…was profundity. To give over…weighty. She had given herself to him. She asked nothing…not with words…but the game…the magic of a story in reverse…is that what she wanted…magic? He knew that role. He surely did know it…but want it? Oh god he did not. But a fixed end…well…he'd believed in that once…and she had it orchestrated…or so she thought. Deadly.

He'd told her who he was. Right off. Years of habit…transparency…removing the threat of himself. I'm Edward Cullen. I'm…innocuous Edward. I do not think, feel or bleed like you, and even if I say I do, disintegrate before you…still…you won't believe me.

He watched the beach and he went to the stove and he fired the grill, the center of the stove, and he watched, then back to make the salad, and what the heck did she like…what if she was vegetarian…this was a big hunk of meat…he couldn't imagine her eating this at all. He wanted…where was she?

And finally, long after the grill was off and the steaks were thrown, thrown on a plate, raw and unwrapped and set on a shelf in the refrigerator, and the salad was in the trash, long after he'd taken to sitting on the porch, in the dark chill and the roar of the water he watched for her and knew she wasn't going to come. And he was quiet…and calm…and festering…and expecting nothing at all.

When all hope was let out of its cage and the cage was cleaned and desolate, a light bobbed in the distance, too big to be a firefly…too late in the year. She came in the dark, flashlight…blue jeans and the sweater, and her hair in a ponytail, and boots…boots almost to her knees and she carried the big cloth purse and it looked loaded with something heavy.

He didn't stand, but stayed on the chair, tipped back on its two hind legs, he wore jeans, barefooted, and a sweatshirt from years ago.

She walked slowly up the stairs, cradling her bag. "I'm here," she said.

He felt nervous, frustrated. "I gave up," he said.

"You were waiting?"

"You didn't think I was?"

"You never said for sure. I…almost didn't come. But…I made soup."

"Soup?" That angered him more, the thought that she had stayed away to cook.

"I had food here," he said.

"Oh. This is still hot."

"I'm not hungry," he lied. "It's too late. I'll bet you never think about time."

She stood there, staring. "Do you want me to go?"

He slowly lowered the chair. His heart hammered with her so near he could smell her food, her could smell her skin, her hair, over the sea, because he knew her, the slightest trace of her.

He stood now, their eyes locked and he couldn't hold her gaze, couldn't, wouldn't send her away. The house had grown so empty. She shouldn't have made him wait. This was her idea. She wanted tonight. What was it about? He should send her home.

He went in and held his door wide as she'd done for him earlier.

She followed him, and he veered off at the table and she went to the stove. She sat her bag on the wooden counter top and lifted a green pot with a lid. She set this on the stove and she lifted the lid and he smelled it and he was right there by her.

"It's potato soup," she said, offering it to him, her eyes…just like when she undressed…or spread her legs…those eyes….

"I'll…I'll take some," he said, swallowing loudly.

Bowls. They needed bowls. He couldn't remember and he stupidly opened two cabinet doors looking. Damn Mrs. Cope, this was somehow her fault. He saw the crockery and took two bowls down and slammed the door harder than he meant to.

He had to be with her. He wanted to be with her.

She laid the lid on the counter. She pulled a drawer and found the ladle. She went to stirring and he got right beside her and set the bowls. Two of them. One for her…one for him. Two of them.

Her hand was on the counter as she stirred the soup.

She had stopped stirring. He looked at her. Deep, dark silence. "Where is he?" he said.

She shook her head. "Not with me," she whispered.

"Were you going to tell me?"

The dark silent look. "You wouldn't ask this close to the end," she said. "You would know by now."

"You're a damn married woman," he enunciated.

"I'm not," she yelled back, and he was surprised at the sudden emotion, but he'd seen that before, that morning in fact. "It's over."

He waited for more.

"Don't," she said.

"Don't? Don't ask who you are?"

She started to stir the soup. "Bella Black," she whispered. "Google it if you must."

They stared at one another. He felt angry enough to break a few dishes at least, but he knew how to control himself. But the wild jealousy inside, he hadn't seen that coming. He might hate her right now. In fact…he did.

"Should I go?" she said again.

He turned away from her and ran his hands through his hair. He looked around, the dark, the still and the uncountable tons of water shifting beyond…she was playing havoc with…everything. He was a wreck and she seemed to plug right in to it. "I happen to respect marriage. Give me a choice at least."

"I knew that. I…imagined that. I wouldn't do that to you."

"Really?" he said, but it wasn't nice.

"Should I go?"

He wanted to send her away, wanted the drama, wanted to hurt her, reject her on the chance she lied, so he could prove to himself he was so fucking upstanding he wouldn't continue to use her now that he'd dropped lower than ever.

But did he want her to go? Was there a shred of honesty in him? Would he put all his sins on her? He hadn't asked…if she was married. He hadn't cared. "No," he all but croaked. "No."

He let out a breath and went to the fridge, popping it open and grabbing two green bottles of beer.

She was watching him, taking her cue, she started to stir the soup again, filling one bowl then the other.

He yanked out a chair and sat, and she served him first. That calmed him greatly. More than he liked. He was letting her call all the shots, turn him inside out. He was begging for more.

She went back to the stove for her bowl and brought it to the table.

He noticed her hands shaking as she set it on the table.

All the anger was out of him. He reached and circled her wrist with his long ridiculous fingers.

They looked at one another, and she was quickly moving to him and he pushed against the table and the soup rocked like the waves and he was barely aware as she fell on him and he wanted it…wanted her, and he rose up, his arms around her and he lifted her off her feet and her legs went around him and he held her there, and his hand moved to the back of her head, the other arm shelved her ass and her legs circled him and she locked her ankles and he carried her a few paces one way and the other, and she held on, her face buried against his neck, and he thought, my god, even like this…even if…I want her.

They slept on the couch that night, and he held her…and she held him…and outside, a storm, and rain pelted the porch roof and the windows and the soup cooled on the stove and the table and maybe the floor and he'd never closed the door…and it was downright cold and still…he held this woman.


	4. Chapter 4

Leaping 4

In the morning, she startled awake. He'd been holding her for hours, quiet, the urge to pee the only protest in the serenity. But holding her…he couldn't deny…it felt useful.

Life was still sweet. And he couldn't care enough, desperate as he was to feel it. Why had he moved out of the fog? There, it had been painless at least. But now…with her…oh god…life became tragic once again.

To him…she was beautiful. Her skin, her dark brows, and hair, her sweet lips. To him, the rise and fall, the thump of her heart the way her hands moved in her sleep and she mumbled, and she quieted becoming aware, again and again…she wasn't alone.

God, what are you doing to me, he thought more than once, and though he was bitter, he was not just that, he was asking a question, like a student, like someone open to learning, and he didn't want that…to learn. He'd quit asking. He'd quit.

He held her and that was the thing. He let himself feel her weight, her need. What was she doing? Who…? He'd seen the indent on her ring finger, he knew it had been there recently, and for a good while, maybe it belonged there still.

He was conflicted, and he knew it would make him unstable and how he'd worked to quiet the madman…to die to himself.

He was not a haunted man. The voices had stilled. He had buried them. He had been counseled…he had listened. It wasn't his fault…surviving…breathing through it…lasting long enough…to walk away. It wasn't his fault that his words…his deeds…and he knew all that. It's what he'd say himself to someone else wrestling with a situation they'd been thrust in…hadn't chosen…wouldn't want. He'd said that in his pastor's voice, his soothing, shit-filled slide of a voice, it will all be alright…it matters.

He just wanted to hold her. That's it. Anything more was impossible. Every word ready to blow it up…blow them up. She was playing an impossible game. They'd started with sex. It couldn't be anything more. They were good at it…compatible. It's what they both lacked…him at least…connection…physical, genital, wet, mindless driving need…it's what they needed…he did…and she was clawing for it…chirping, bleating for it, mewling and mooing for it, trying to drain him…like she could.

He moved from beneath her, went outside and peed in line with the wind. He went in, shed his clothes, moved to her where she waited on the sofa, pulled her onto her feet, her eyes soft with deep sleep, he started to undress her, knocked her hands away and did it himself, hurried, but careful enough for a man with a hard on, a hard heart, a hard story, he unbuttoned, unhooked, unzipped, and tugged until her skin and curves and temptations and secrets were his, for him, for his eyes. He took her to the windows, to the floor and he laid and her on top and he wanted her over his face, suffocating him in scent and wet and slick licks and she whimpered and screamed and he moaned and his fingers dug into her flesh, and his eyes rolled into his head and he took, and took, and took. And he fell back and her hand on the glass, her throbbing on his chest, and she scooted back and she laid over him, a shell of woman, an armor of woman, and her hair and her limbs sprawled, and when he calmed enough he flipped her onto her back the floor soft honey shine on her back and he pushed into her, her body parted and open and his, and the hot inside of her pulling him in, pushing him back, pulling and pushing, and unguarded sounds from him, unguarded from her, and she rose up, and met him, though he was wanting to pound in, a furrow, a row, and split her in two, blow her up, send her up, and scattered to the sea.

He finished, his mouth open, and against her neck, and his lips gathered slowly to plant a kiss against the flutter, his breath in her ear, but no words.

They lay on their backs. Not touching. Staring at the criss-crossed wood above them. "He was…he was with you…they…were with you," she said.

It's like mercury had been shot into his veins, the cold silver running through, slamming into his heart. The betrayal…stunning him.

Bella Black. He looked at her. She was already turned to him, the sympathy, the fear in her eyes.

"That's why," he said. A set-up. Nothing more. Of course. The world…the fucking ruined world.


	5. Chapter 5

Leaping 5

"Leave," he said. It wasn't difficult. His sense of betrayal…it wasn't hard to ask her…to demand it.

"Please…please…let me explain."

"How did you find me?"

"Alice," she said, still naked, her hair her only covering sitting on the floor still, and him already standing, dressing.

Double betrayal…his…tryst…and his sister and she was so damn open with him…this woman…this woman who needed to cover herself.

"You have to go. Go now. I don't want to see you again. Go now." He found her clothes, lonely discarded…crumpled…her jeans, her underclothes, her blouse, her pride. He flung these at her, in her direction, and she made no move, but she sat there, naked, untied, undone, unholy, unwanted, scab, scar, intrusion.

"Get out," he said louder, "get out," and he did not know himself, this voice, these movements, "get out."

He wouldn't run and hope and cower and steal and stealth…she had to go, he went to the door, then he saw her pan of soup and he went for this and he took it out on the porch and he threw it and the lid and the pot and the white slash of soup, and the gray, gray, gray world.

She came out then, and he waited, hands on the railing, head down. He didn't used to be this. But now…he was.

She stepped close to him, and she wore the sweater and clutched the blouse, her bra, the scarf, and her hair blew over her face, her lovely, lying mouth, her beautiful, sinful, scheming, conniving eyes. "I want you to meet him. He talks about you…all the time."

"Get out. Get the fuck out," he said, though she was out, and waiting on the porch and he wanted to fling her…like the soup.

"I'm going. I'm leaving…but I'll be there…at the cabin," she said.

Over this he yelled, "Get away from me," and he stomped into the house and slammed the door and locked it against her.

His back on the door, his shoulders, his stomach…his fury. He went up the stairs, but that wasn't it…he went to the room he used now, his room and he stood there and walked there, to the window to make sure…she was going, and she was, stumbling along, tripping some, rubbing at her eyes, she'd dropped her clothes, she'd left the pot, the lid, she left…she left.


	6. Chapter 6

This chapter is rough and could be disturbing. So turn away now and read one of the many wonderful stories on this site that will leave you smiling, dear reader. And if you choose to go ahead, know I believe in HEA's, but the road to such can be very rocky.

Leaping 6

He brooded for two days. He got drunk and told Bella off in the empty house. He went so deep down the well of self pity he could barely breathe. He called Alice and yelled and Jasper got on and told him to deal with it and to shut the fuck up and then nothing.

Oh, so this was the new approach now. Fuck him over…then tough love. "Fuck you," he yelled before throwing his phone and hearing it break apart on the floor…where he'd been with her…that cunning bitch…that fucking traitorous bitch.

He'd passed out on the floor. Mrs. Cope found him there the following morning. "Are you alright Mr. Cullen?" she asked, leaning over him, startling him as he opened his crusted eyes and tried to focus on her round concerned face.

He felt shame. Time was…he put others first…he'd cared how he came off…how he represented…love. Now he struggled to get up. "I'm fine," he mumbled, then he rolled onto his knees and defied gravity to get on his feet. No sooner had he gotten his bearings than he had to run out the door she'd left open. The fresh air was a shock. He leaned over the railing and threw up and the sea rolled and his stomach with it, but there wasn't much inside him…he hadn't eaten.

So he was quiet and sick deep down then. He hoped Alice was happy, pulling him back to all of the crap, the voices, the feelings, he hoped she was wrecked and Jasper was cursing him while he tried to comfort her. He knew how he'd leaned on them, but that was Alice. She'd have it no other way…his enabler. Now she was trying to get rid of him, trying to move him past it all so she could breathe. He'd told her to back off, he'd said it and said it…they weren't joined at the hip…he had a right to feel terrible…to be terrible. He had a fucking right.

When he calmed some, and he always did eventually, he cleaned up and drove in to the library in town to use the computer. He didn't have Wifi at the house, and with his phone broken…. He didn't want it. But here, using the library's technology, he Googled Bella Black. There were five of them, maybe more, but she was head of the list…well, she would be. It had been a big story, and there was her name…linked to his…the dead grandfather…the wounded kid…linked to him. On the computer…linked forever.

The intersection of two souls on the beach…orchestrated. His sister. The one he'd leaned on…the only one left...and now…nobody.

He followed the thread on the boy…story after story. He'd recovered. He was walking. She was the mother…Bella Black.

Emotion opened…a sinkhole, a pit. That kid was walking. He shut it off then. He looked around, made sure he was alone as he wiped over his face with a shaking hand.

He hadn't wanted to see the boy. He hadn't wanted it. It was the only way to control something…and from his core…he'd refused all interviews.

He'd done his part…all he could…limited…pathetic. He'd had to let go. Or appear to. He had to appear to let go…like he could.

He'd pulled out of everything, quit everything, his work, his life. Tanya. Just quit. And months in his apartment…then at Alice's. Counseling in another town. Two weeks trying to sell the latest technology at a superstore. Then not coming out of the house again. Drinking. Counseling. Waiting tables. Drinking. Anger. Seclusion.

Now here, to the house, his grandfather's dream, that's when he'd moved in and he found…he couldn't move at all, not really, but he was great at pretending to move. That he could do…on occasion…for brief spells of time.

For a few weeks, they had loved him, held him up, and he had hidden while they created their idol that was him…without him, the young pastor who had tried to stand before the sixteen year old giant wielding an assault rifle…like the Chinese student in Tiananmen square, before the oppressor's tank he'd stood. Like David of old standing before Goliath with just a sling. Like Gandalf with the Balroc slamming his staff in the path of its onslaught, "You shall not pass."

They had said all of those things in various articles, not that he read them, but Alice did, and that was nearly the same.

They were tired now, those writers and wielders of laurel wreaths, the cheerers and worshippers of the courage they'd ascribed him, the superman suit, but there were more tragedies lining up all the time, and he was pushed to the back of the line then off the hero's cliff altogether, and those who knew him best were left with the truth…he was human and distant and no more brave than the next person working his ideals in a church where boys came to practice walking the aisle…for Boy Scout week.

Charlie Swan was shot first, the proud grandfather watching his grandson practice from the back row, straight from work. Charlie wasn't a leader, he had too much work to do, heavy responsibility, but he came whenever he could, always on the sidelines of his grandson's life, filling in for a father that never was, and he'd watched his grandboy carry the flag and march in step, and all the aisles a boy walked in his life, all important, and this no different, but Charlie was first, nearest the door when the shooter came in, the first to go, and that's when they knew, when their heads snapped up, when they looked to the source of a noise these hallowed halls had yet to hear, for all the sins confessed, for all the tears cried, it had never heard the pop of an assault rifle, for all the talk of the blood of Christ and how it cleansed and forgave, it had never seen that shocking red explosion, that far flung spill that quelled the few splatters of communion wine it had witnessed, brighter, bolder was this spray this spill, warmer, no less life altering, no less precious…sacred.

Edward had met him in the center aisle, but not before James shot two more, the flag bearers at the end of the group, Seth Swan and Riley Barnes. He paused and boys screamed and yelled and moved behind him, but Edward, hands out, kept approaching the shooter, and he recognized him, knew him, "James," he said, "no…no…don't do this, no, no…."

There was no remorse, no repentance, but a set look, and James raised the rifle and Edward dropped and moved forward on his hands and feet, and more shots over his head and screaming and like a crazed perversion of himself Edward made a sound and closed the gap, and this was the moment, where he reached James and took him down, and the rifle pressed on James neck and Edward…all his weight pushing that weapon into James' neck, pushing, pushing against James' wild struggle, pushing down, crushing breath…until he wasn't moving, until some time later a voice, an agonized voice, and a hand on his shoulder pulling him, pulling, telling him to stop, to stop. And he looked up and it was one of the boys, tears tracking his soft face. "Stop Edward."

He had strangled James Carson. He was dead. But he didn't stop. "Go on and wait for the ambulance," he told the boy. He stayed on top of James. He held the rifle where it was. Minutes later, the sheriff had to pry Edward's hands from James' gun. He didn't want to let it go…he couldn't on his own.

Back at his grandfather's house he stood, looking out the door, at the sea. He wanted to walk into it again, to let it slam against him…but the pot from her soup…and the lid. He walked out there and gathered these, put the lid on the pot and holding it by the green handles, he walked some and gathered her discarded clothes, her bra, and he kept glancing at the sand encrusted cloth that seemed to make her so intimately real, and he thought of her, he didn't want to…but he did…and how broken she was…had to be…was…and he neared the cabin, and went to the porch, and not knowing if she still lived inside, he set these things on the porch, and he turned away and walked home in the path they had carved beyond the ocean's reach, and he knew regret to not have those things in his hands anymore. He knew real regret.


	7. Chapter 7

Leaping 7

He put the books back on the shelves in Carlisle's library. It was Carlisle who had built on what his grandfather had already started. When Edward had pulled the books the first two weeks he'd been there, his intention had been to read them. He was looking for other lives to be involved in. He was looking for answers.

But he'd soon tired of the processes of story, the manipulations to pull him in when he was already in. He didn't have time. He just wanted the truth.

That's when he'd began leaping to the endings…to read the conclusions…the heroes returning home with the elixir, the prize…and what had they learned?

At first he'd kept a notebook. The themes were profoundly simple, the value of noticing a person's worth, a man's conscience against society and culture, making peace with the father you hated, realizing you were a lot like him. The themes were human and uplifting and life affirming, and for Edward, they could be traced to a further source of those same themes…Scripture.

He'd already studied the source of those stories. The struggle of God with man and man with God in the original text. Everything else was a working out of the same struggle. If he were to write his own story…he could add it to the pile and someone…somewhere would be able to relate. He was not unique. They…were not unique.

When Bella had stood amongst the books…it was resurrection…. She was sound and dimension and beauty, warmth, feeling…and more…and he was pulled out of his head for once. She had no idea the picture she'd made, standing boldly…with fascination, alive and…present, having the courage to come for him. Not at him…but for him…to deliver him from his own company…from his own endless musings.

There was a difference. She…made a difference…standing there. And everything he might believe would be challenged…by another human being…and this one…had barged right through the usual foyer experience most people had with him, if, if they made it through his door. This one…Bella…had come to save him.

On the other hand, it was simple. Men had been projecting the wrong motives, the wrong personas, the wrong values onto the women they wanted to bed…did bed…since the fall in the garden. He was no different there. He had thought she was one thing…learned she was another. It happened all of the time. That's why…he'd never done something like this before. Not since college…before he'd surrendered to a different life where he tried to judge a person's worth with no thought at all about how to exploit them for his own desperate need, but he'd tried to see their value…he'd tried to serve. So he got what all men got when they leapt to the end. Fucked. And fucked again.

But maybe that was bullshit. Maybe his desperate need had been to be good. Maybe that's why he couldn't forgive himself now.

Oh, no, it wasn't that. It wasn't the old "I can't forgive myself," bullshit men spouted as if they didn't forgive themselves constantly for their many sins against women, children, God, earth, animals, mankind. Men had no power to forgive themselves of anything, yet they did it all the time, rationalizing away….. This was more than that…please God.

This was more like…I gave all I could. I had no more. So I walked away. And they couldn't demand, they could only ask, for they knew…I had given them everything, and I turned my pockets inside out…so they could see…my poverty.

That's what this was. Poverty.

And Bella…Black knew she had no right to ask more of him. She had no right at all.

He had reacted. He had dissected it over and over again. He was there…it happened…he reacted. The kid was there to kill. He shot Charlie Swan. He shot the flag-bearers. He shot two others over Edward's head when he'd leapt…reacted…and knocked James off of his military boots.

Edward had not restrained. He had killed. He…trained to save…to value…not to exploit…but to serve…he who had been trained that way…to see…to listen…to care…had not restrained James, but had killed him, had brought the weapon over James throat and had crushed…in the place of sacred ritual and joy…in a place he so revered he would stop and stoop to pick up a scrap of paper….

They had to pry his hands….

That's always where the chapter ended in Edward's mind. With the prying.

It had to be. He wasn't a baby, he knew that. It wasn't a question of why. There was no satisfying answer, nothing uncovered that made them slap their foreheads in revelation. James left them nothing. He wasn't out to serve their need to understand so they could work on it, get on it and ferret it out, the motive, the reason that would return some feeling of control…for the future. So they speculated, willing to blame themselves, willing to take a stand on one issue or another as if one thing could explain such a dark, crucifying choice.

We all sin. There was that. There was always that.

It's just that some of our sins…oh….

The community had wanted Edward…demanded Edward…were angry when he didn't come out of the arena's door in his gladiator suit, brandishing a sword to their roar and wow. We'll show 'em!

It was quickly becoming about him. They wanted the focus there…on him…the illusion of control. The idea that wherever the punks of the world raised their assault weapons, the Edwards would be there to tackle them to the ground and kill them, stamp them out like the plague they were, to enforce…freedom.

He quickly became the only thing in the story that made sense. And they wanted him to come out of his hidey hole and rally them. A hero doesn't hide. A hero doesn't withdraw.

He'd had no choice in what James put in motion. His choice was taken away, and that's what James was there to do, take. Take. Take.

But Edward had choice in many things after…the prying.

What did he want to do next?

That's what he realized during the inquest. He answered the questions, painstakingly answered, again and again. They were with him. They were for him. They wanted to honor him…did so absentia.

Edward didn't show up, told them he wouldn't. He disappointed them. They quit trying. It was better this way. Now they could talk about him without having to deal with him. He was much more heroic as a fictional character…bringing the elixir home.

"They were with you." That's what she'd said. What an odd way to say it. It touched him and repelled him all at once. He didn't want to interpret her choice of words. But she'd lumped them together, in her mind. They'd been with him. Why would she say it like that? It was odd. She was odd.

He had nothing more to give to the boys who survived. He had killed in front of them. He had nothing more to give than the 'everything' he had given. It would have to suffice. It would have to be enough.

When she'd stood amongst the books…he thought she was there to save him. And for a few nights…it felt that way…it felt…like heaven.

But he was wrong. She was there…like all the rest…to take.

And all he had was choice…choice was precious, in the context of care for another, in the paradigm of valuing life…outside of that context, outside of that paradigm, choice…was a staggering possibility, choice…was a horror.

So…what would he do next?

Bella solved that for him. He heard her calling him from below, and he was still abed. He got up and dressed, but he was slow about it, his body feeling sore, stiff. He went in the bathroom and did the fundamentals, pissed, brushed, ran water and hands through his hair, left the healthy stubble.

He went downstairs and she was standing there, near the table. The beauty…it always surprised him…how perfect…and he softened some to realize he would never be able to resist her under normal conditions. There were many factors at work, and he was human.

He wasn't mad at her anymore. Just disappointed, and even then, more about the way life was than the way she was.

"Hey," she said softly. "I…thanks for bringing my stuff over. I…didn't hear you…but I figured…." She shrugged, looking down, looking back at him, seeking his permission to even be there.

"Not a problem," he said. He gestured she could sit, he didn't want her to, it would be better if they walked, just to sit and stare at one another…that was worse, surely.

They spoke at the same time and he stopped and said, "You first," and she said, "No, you."

"Well…goes without saying this is over." He hated saying that. But it's all he had to show her how wrong it was. To let it continue was impossible. "I…I apologize if you feel like…if I was too rough…or for taking advantage…saying some rough things…I didn't need to do that…to throw your soup like that…I apologize. But…this can't…there's no trust. I don't trust you. I don't want to…want this…." He couldn't get his words right so he rubbed over his face and, somewhere in there he'd said his piece.

"Well," she said, a sad laugh, "the good thing is, we're moving backwards."

He looked sharply at her. "Bella…are you…I know you've been through a lot. Are you…stable?" He felt it then, well he'd seen the sadness first day, first minute, he'd said that to her, instincts, he'd said, "You're sad."

She laughed some. "I know what I'm saying, Edward. We agreed we'd go backwards. We'd stay in that pattern. We agreed."

"All bets are off. Bella."

"No, Edward. They're not off. You can quit. There's not much I can do about it. But…we agreed."

"Why is this so important to you?"

"If we keep going backwards…you won't have to quit. Everything that's happened between us…in reality…hasn't happened yet…according to our agreement. Therefore…everyday is a new day. All that has happened is what we haven't messed up yet…because we haven't experienced it yet. That's the beauty of moving backwards. It's all we have now…it's all we have to keep us together."

"Oh, so you haven't betrayed me yet?"

"Betrayed?"

"So you haven't duped me yet? As I see it, your scheme with Alice runs all the way through this. That's why I can't continue."

"I'm sorry you feel betrayed, but I haven't told you about knowing Alice yet. That's…in the future. Today…we're here. In your kitchen. Today…I want to be with you and I pray…pray you will be with me." She looked at him then.

"It's all lies," he said.

"I could tell you here that it isn't. I could tell you here that I was so intrigued when I met you on the beach. Of course I knew of you…of course I did. I could tell you…that…the very idea of you…I've been so grateful…with no way to express it. Cards and letters, but Alice told me you wouldn't read them. And you didn't take calls. That's how I got to know her, of course. It makes sense, see."

"We either ignore it all…and lie…or we dwell on it. Our relationship would become all about it now that you've brought it here," he said. "Either way it's intolerable."

"It's not intolerable. How can it not be a part of us? A part of who we are?"

"You gave me no choice," he said. "That's the thing. You took my choice away."

"I didn't. I chose you, that first day. I said I'd come…and I did. You seemed to choose me."

"A lack of information," he said.

"It's always that way."

"Vital information," he said.

"That I intended to give you at the right time," she said.

"Who are you to decide that?'

"If I could speak about the past few days…in real time…what we've shared…unhampered…unfettered…do you regret it?'

"Knowing this? We would have known. That's the lie. We would have known if it was normal…and not this sick game."

"I did know," she said. "I knew. And it made it more…not less. That made it everything."

"You used me. This is all about you."

"I didn't," she whispered. "I couldn't. You're…I'm in love with you."

He was speechless. He could see the sincerity in her eyes, her voice, her very posture, hands splayed on the table, one of them moving and resting on his arm. "I love you," she said again. "How could I not? From the first?"

He worked to find his voice. "Have you had…help…since…."

"Yes," she said quickly. "All kinds. Bombarded…actually."

"This is some…unhealthy…."

"No," she shook her head, eyes closing briefly. "It's real. It's more than you saving Seth, though that was the beginning certainly, but now…it's more."

"You need to go," he said standing up. He'd jarred the table, he felt clumsy.

"Don't send me away," she said. "I want to be with you."

"I don't trust…this," he said, unnerved. "I blame myself…we've been intense…and physically I know…for women…and you're grieving. This is grief." He had no idea what he was saying, why he was going on.

"It's just one day," she said standing, her fingertips white against the table where she leaned her weight.

"Don't…."

"It ends in two weeks. It's over then," she asserted.

"I have no commitment to this," he said, angry…that he wanted her to convince him…that he didn't know how he'd stay in this house….

"But you are involved," she said. "Just…be involved a little longer."

"What do you want from me? I can't encourage this. I'm not irresponsible, or a complete bastard."

"Oh…I know that."

"You know Alice now. I…suppose you'll tell her all about this…and who else? I don't know you."

"You know me. This is us."

"Us? No us."

"Right now is…between us."

He shook his head, resisting. "I'm not…I'm not…there could be no more…."

"Intercourse?" she said, smiling now, but her eyes sad.

He laughed a bit, but no joy, no ease, "No. And besides that endless talk about…the…your family…see? It can't go anywhere. What's your goal here? What's the point?"

"I'll take anything," she said. "I just want to be with you. We have the ocean. We have houses and books. We can just be. Two people getting to know each other."

They'd end up sleeping together again. He couldn't encourage her. She said she loved him. She wasn't stable.

"I can't…I need to be alone," he said. "If…I'll think it over. I'll let you know. I don't want to be cruel. I know you're looking for connection to…."

"Let's make soup."

"What?"

"Let's make soup. I haven't been eating properly, and I know you haven't either."

He should say no. End it now. End it. "I…I have steak."

"Steak soup?" she smiled. She seemed so normal just then. He couldn't be fooled by it.

"Seems a shame but…. Why not?"

So that's what they did. They cooked together. And she told him she'd graduated Iowa State and they opened a bottle of red wine, and they talked about books then. He talked mostly. He couldn't shut up. About books. But the words didn't matter so much and when they dwindled there was food. And when they'd eaten there was the ocean. And when they'd put on coats and walked some there was the pier and when they walked that and stood on the end, she took his hand then and he didn't pull away.

"I lost my dad," she said softly, and he had to lean in, though he'd heard. "He…raised me. My mother left. I was six. When she came home she was dying. We didn't know. She didn't know. But she was gone in a year. And…he'd taken care of her. And after that…he said, just you and me, kiddo. He said that all the time. When I got pregnant in college…I graduated and came home to him and he was with me, with Seth. And sometimes I'd hear him say to Seth…you and me, kiddo. Who says kiddo? Just your dad. But in the hospital…when Seth was in a coma for so many days…I said that to him…all the time."

It was alright then, her hand and her words, making Charlie real, Seth…. The ocean was big, and two ships out there. Stories everywhere…just the life in this water…the secrets.

"How…," he had to clear his throat, "…how long were you married?"

She looked at him, hair whipping, her skin red and soft with the salt and the mist. "Two years. It was…my divorce was final a couple of weeks ago but the marriage…two years separated."

He moved his arm around her. Years of habit, comforting…but no…this was more.


	8. Chapter 8

Leaping 8

They stayed together that night. He blamed the soup, the simple delicious taste of the beef and carrots and onions and celery and her pearl barley, not the instant kind, but the real deal, he blamed all of that…and the feeling in his stomach…so good he didn't know how to let it be…full.

And he blamed her, if blame was the right word. His rational self, always his guide, told him to cut and run. But she was an adventure. That's how she hit him, her face as she talked away at the cutting board or listened to him, she listened…there was something endearing about it, he didn't know what…her smile, her eyes…she kept up contact…she seemed eager…unnerving, very unnerving…her raw need…but it drew him.

He'd come here to the ocean with a sense of wanting more, wanting life, and here she was…Bella. A whirlwind. He couldn't fix it or figure it or be at peace with it….

It wasn't chance, or even destiny, it was manipulation all the way, but she was an adventure none-the-less. She got to him.

So he comforted himself with her, next to him on the couch. He hadn't allowed them to go to the bedroom as if the couch made it less involved, but he'd held her there again, slept little, just let himself be…feel…comfort, and the worry over the comfort.

"Be content," Bill used to tell him, "to let things be a mess. The best things come that way. Birth is a mess."

In his work, he'd learned to do that…until a mess came that was so big, so consuming…it broke him.

Now he had her. Life in the beige Petri dish…Bella Black.

Bella's declaration of love…it shocked him like…new love…neon love.

Tanya claimed to love him. He wasn't boasting, but he was a good catch…good material…for marriage. He knew that. Women noticed him and he'd wondered about himself more than once, why he didn't feel excited…why he couldn't reciprocate when everything looked right.

He knew now…he was starting to get it. When it came…love…not that it had, but she claimed it had and he could see how powerful, when a woman like her just came at you with an intensity…and so captivating….

There wouldn't be another like her. It wouldn't be possible. Born out of tragedy…this kind of bond…this kind of…love?

He needed…help. He wanted to be told how to think. Not what. But how, and that was often the case. He looked for the boundaries in which to think.

His normal boundaries were tried and true and past finding out. He'd chosen those high and lofty ones, or they'd chosen him. But the incident…it had expanded those ancient boundaries. It had made them huge. Death, pain, tragedy were everywhere, but so was God, so was love, so was extraordinary compassion, and mercy and kindness and tears and grief and joy and empathy and heroics…and surprises…and soup….

Personally, he hadn't won by matching James, by trumping him with might…and right. His personal victory lay in becoming more like what he believed and less like James now, in the aftermath…by not allowing James to infect him and conform him to his distorted image.

That was the battle. If he stayed bitter, human life was diminished. Look at the way he'd been treating Bella. His sister. Everyone.

The victory was in not giving up on who he was and what he was called to do…and what he believed. And who he believed in.

The F word. Forgiveness. Always the ultimate victory cause it took God, the real God, not the version of him he created or shunned so he could control him, but the real God of Scripture, the Forgiver, it took Him to even make the concept of forgiveness a consideration….

"Oh shit," he whispered. He was having his revelation, finally. He was moving in the womb of his seclusion, his head aligning with the birth canal and he'd had no more to do with this birth than the others, the one where he'd come screaming forth from his mother, the one he'd found that night in college, kneeling at his window grieving her.

The call was always the victory. He had to forgive.

He eased from her, but not before kissing her forehead.

He looked down on her as he stood beside the couch now. She was still asleep, her face, he saw it then, etched in the beauty, the slight trace of suffering. He felt it then, in a new way, her honest and bold need of him, he faced her generosity, the way she'd given…from the first, the widow's mite, the gift of all she had…he saw it then, he felt it.

Oh, the crash of discovery. Too much was coming at once now. He had to tear himself away from her. He wasn't worthy yet. There had to be something backing any promise he would make, any conclusion he might make regarding one so beautifully fragile…so angelic.

He crept from the room, from the house, into the cold night, and the rowdy movement of the Leviathan that roiled the ocean. He got to the water and he walked in until it was to his waist, and he plunged under and quickly stood, gasping and flipping his hair back.

He would leave it here in the ocean…James…in God's hands now…beyond them all. He would let the sea take the infection from him, and he steadied his feet in the dwindling sand and eyes to the sky and just quiet and small and cleansed.

He said two things when he finally spoke, two words that typified every kind of prayer that didn't ask for help. He thought of the revelation, and he thought of her, the embodiment of God's offer, his second chance…to live. "Thank-you."

And in response a hand, gripping his as it ruddered through the water. She stood beside him in the cold, the shocking cold, of course she'd come right in. He looked at her…and he wondered before…was she real?

She smiled at him, then a wave hit them hard and she laughed, and he did, and he scooped her up and trudged awkwardly onto the beach, and he kept going, toward the house, but he couldn't stop looking at her. He wouldn't.

"You're different," she said softly, her arms around his neck.

He smiled at her. And they reached the porch stairs and he hurried up and into the house and he took her all the way in and he hefted her higher in his arms and she laughed, and he took the stairs then, the sand on the soles of his feet scratching at the wood, and down the hall to his room, and once in there he took her to the bed and set her there and he went to his drawers for warm clothes and found these and gave them to her. "I'm turning the shower on," he said. "For you."

"What about you?" she said, always focused on him.

"I'm fine," he said. She took the clothes and looking at him, she waved a little before closing the door.

The animal side of him wanted to go right after her, take her there, grind into her.

He found more clothes and went down the hall. He got in the hot shower and quickly washed. In five minutes he was dressed and back in his room just as she was coming out of his bathroom. Steam followed her, and her hair was long and wet and she smiled.

He put one knee on the bed and said, "Come here."

And she did. He settled them under the blanket and he had his arms around her.

"Are you okay?" she said softly, stroking his arm.

He nodded then, and he resituated them, and entangled with her that way, he slept.

In the morning, there was no question that they would stay together. He couldn't conceive of her dwelling so far down the beach.


	9. Chapter 9

Leaping 9

The thing that made something true…was proving it to yourself…again and again…and again…until you knew.

It took work…seeing…searching…facing…challenging…admitting.

It took effort. Courage. Commitment.

He knew that. Behind him she was in the house cooking their breakfast.

He'd wanted to do this, to help, and he'd seen her…in that way…like God grabbed his face and made him pay attention…he'd seen her, her hands graceful, her arms willowy, her heavy hair piled and pinned carelessly on her small lovely head….

She wanted to be with him…wanted to take care of him in a way that made every idea of serving…well she knew more about it than he ever could.

He'd opened himself, or been opened…and he felt her sorrow…its depth…and he'd gotten overwhelmed. She was just poaching eggs. But she'd come to him…holding nothing back…making it true.

Well the cork was out of the bottle, the plug out of the drain, and the great whirling vortex had been created, the vapors of freedom were rising…the new baby lying screaming in the bassinet…he was feeling.

He went for wood then, so they could keep the fire going, so he would have a job, an excuse to turn his back on her, to hide what he knew…what he didn't.

She was setting the plates, food on them. She smiled at him. She'd taken care of them, her men, he could see that. The ex, Black…Edward needed more information.

She smiled and he went to the fireplace and piled the wood and poked around like it took a Ph.D. to figure it out. Then he stood and wiped his hands on his jeans and turned to face her and she waited, seated now, and he went and sat across.

Normally he'd pray, and she gave him time, but he tucked in. "I like my eggs this way," he said, but they'd already established that.

"When you look at the ocean," she said, toast in her hand, "I see it differently."

"What do you mean?"

"You have a way…you observe…it's in your body. You make me look…question…."

She seemed to run out of words and shrugged and took a bite of her bread. She was embarrassed.

Why was it like this now? Why did it feel new when they'd shared…everything? She had stood with him in the ocean hours before….

"You should be in my head when I look at you," he said.

She was so thrown, he regretted blurting something so ridiculous. There was no taking it back so he ate.

"Would I see myself differently?" she asked, stuck there, and he realized she didn't have appetite.

"I guess that's the thing with…," he gestured between them. "Two people…you live in your head and then someone else…well you get pulled out…see yourself…hear yourself…I don't know."

"No one…you say things…in a beautiful way," she said.

He didn't think so. He didn't know. "You're…you're beautiful," he said, trying to keep it light, but of course, it fell like lead.

She grinned at him…like he flipped her switch. He wasn't going for that…but damn…she was beautiful.

"You can't just say that," she laughed.

He shrugged like it was no big deal. "Why not? It's true. Surely someone…your ex-husband?" Oh, smooth segue way, he thought. Now she'd think he was manipulating her.

"No," she whispered. "No you don't."

"What?"

"You think I'm beautiful. Don't bring him into this. This is us…remember?"

Oh boy. It was getting way too complicated.

"I think you're beautiful. To me, like Joe Cocker said. Yeah…to me. But the rest of the world isn't blind…is it? Surely I'm not the only one to ever tell you that. What about your mirror?" Fucking overtalking here.

"Then I'd have to find myself…beautiful. And I don't. I never have. Beauty is…in the eye of the beholder. It's the beholder…you. You think this about me? It's all that matters." She took a drink of her coffee now. She had flushed a deep red. Yeah, she was beautiful. No question. Truth.

"Beautiful," he repeated and smiled, god he needed to get off it, he was being…romantic. Wasn't he? He'd been trying to make it more topical, but she wasn't a fool. She knew things. The beauty wasn't one dimensional. She had it on all fronts. The Joe Cocker song? That was the damn point. Shit. "And these poached eggs are perfect. No easy thing," he said sounding like a monkey's butthole.

"Yeah," she laughed a little. "Seth…," she stopped, as though she'd said the wrong thing, eyes searching again.

"You can talk about him," Edward said. He felt like a son of a bitch having to give her permission. "Bella…you can talk about them." He thought he'd include her father while he was at it.

"It's just…that's not what…I didn't want you to think…. I don't know. I can't really say I didn't want to talk about them with you. I can't say that." Her hands were on her lap now.

He reached across the table and held his palm up. She was quick to slip her hand in his, to hold it with both hands actually.

"Seth was already shot when you tackled James. But do you know he had a sense of…being saved? Somewhere in there…he had a sense of it."

Edward didn't know that.

"And the boys…I've heard it described…how you stopped him."

Edward kept looking at their hands. His were so much larger than hers, but he used both of his now to smooth over her palms to feel how tough hers were, how hardened from work.

"Bella," he said, taking on her eyes now, their beauty, their favor, "an ordinary person can do something…heroic. I'm just…a very flawed man who did…an obvious thing that had to be done."

"The true measure of a man shows in adversity."

"Maybe…inside the broken self there are moments of…getting it so right you seem to be more…than you normally are. Sure. But…it would be grossly unfair to forget we're still talking about a human being. Me."

"You're afraid of it? Of being…wonderful? Like I'm afraid of being…beautiful?"

"No," he said quickly. Then he laughed. "I'm not…believe me I'm not…wonder…." He couldn't finish it. Maybe he was afraid. Well he was. He wouldn't call it fear, he wasn't shaking in the damn corner…but he was cringing at the thought…of being a hero. No new revelation there.

"How have you processed it?" she asked. "What conclusions? Can you share them?"

Now he wasn't hungry. "I guess you could say I was still processing in the ocean last night. I guess you could say I'll be processing this until I die or lose my mental faculties." He didn't know where the sudden anger was coming from.

"The books," she said. He didn't feel comfortable with how much she knew, had seen. He had told himself it was alright he'd taken her flesh, it wasn't love. That had been his consolation.

But for her quite the opposite. Her consolation was the love. For her it was that, or at least she tried to make herself believe it was so. But that didn't give her the right to just dig through him like he was a trunk to be opened and…sorted.

He was starting to care, he knew it. But she was stopping him cold now.

"I'm sorry. You're so private," she whispered, sensing with that unnerving instinct of hers.

"I just…I can't just spout on command…." Hypocrite. He could barely stop spouting around her. Beautiful? Shit.

"I'm so sorry. Of course you can't."

"You of all people should…."

"I do. I do understand. I'm just so desperate to know you," she finished, pulling back her hands, covering her face, standing quickly and turning away from him, rushing to the sink, turning on the water, splashing her face.

He had to blink some, but he got up and went to her, curved over the sink she looked like a bird, gasping for drink.

"Are you alright Bella?" he was alarmed. He didn't even know if she had a medical condition. Even panic disorder. There was so much he didn't know.

"I…," she shut off the water then and straightened her back. "It's been so long…."

He took her by the shoulders and turned her to him. "What has? What is it?"

She was shaking her head, having trouble looking at him. "I'm not very good at this. Being with someone."

He picked up the towel and wiped her face like a good big brother. Then he pulled her in to a tender embrace. He patted her back. "You're fine. It's me. I'm…it's me."

"I'm not fine." She pushed away and he gripped the sink and watched her walk away some. "Oh God…the real me is catching up…to this. I'm sorry. I'm really not…I can't sustain it. I knew I'd ruin it. I'm not really the woman who unties her dress in a man's bedroom…I can't keep it going…not even for three weeks. I'm pathetic."

He loved her for this admission. He didn't know why. He meant he loved the admission. He knew the feeling. He knew it. "Good thing it hasn't happened yet…the dress…dropping. You'll get there." He meant the backwards thing. He thought he was rather inspired to remember it.

Her hands flew over her red face, but she laughed. She whipped her hands down. "My skills," she laughed sadly, "it was Seth for so long. Coming here…this was a first. Alice helped me. She said…this place…she told me about it. About you. She told me you were coming here."

He resented that still, much as he was glad to be with Bella, but if it weren't for Alice he wouldn't know about Bella and he could have continued in his fog…his isolation that was so much easier.

She went to her abandoned chair and pulled it out and sat. Her shoulders were soft, her hands gripped between her knees. She looked at him and he felt that jolt, like always. "I'm sorry. My pain isn't bigger than yours must be. I'm so sorry."

He thought they were past this…sorrow toward one another at least. "I'm fine," he whispered, not imagining his pain was anywhere near her own. "I'm glad you're here," he said with complete honesty.

For a thing to be true…you have to prove it. You have to keep proving it. Or let it prove itself to you. Or you'll never really believe it. You might pretend to, but you'll know…deep down…you're a hypocrite.

But this…it was true. He was glad she was here. He wanted her here. That was established. And he'd take what came with it.

For the next two weeks. But that was the part that slapped at him now. Hypocrite. What if two weeks weren't enough?


	10. Chapter 10

Leaping 10

They jogged to the pier. It was empty. The wind was strong, the clouds hanging low. The wind was cold. They jogged on the boarded floor, their steps like the ocean's heartbeat muffled by its own thrashing.

At the end they turned around and headed back, and she started to pull ahead and he got caught looking at her…her body calling to him and he tried not to let that be first, but he'd had her…he knew…he wanted her again. She made him forget. She was her own world and he liked it. Wanted it…wanted her…ached.

He refused to justify it. After the incident…boundaries had shifted. He became liberal in what he allowed. He'd started to curse. Immoral acts became redefined by assault rifles and attacks on innocents…innocent…young…soft…trusting…innocent….

"Fuck," he yelled into the wind and he bent over, hands on his knees and him heaving.

She was still ahead but she'd heard him and she held up and jogged back to him.

He was heaving there and he saw her little feet and them stepping, and for all the shit-fucks in him right now, he had to laugh at the way her one foot toed-in some, and her little ankles. She was pretty adorable.

He straightened up.

"Leg cramp?" she said, and he kept looking at her, talk about innocent, just…pure.

She was just a good person. Just good. She didn't deserve a bad thing…and she'd had this…so much.

"I don't usually ask why," he said. "I usually think…well why not?"

Yeah she looked confused, and she left off jogging in place, and she was standing there in her pink workout pants and her black jacket zipped and the hood puckered around her face, and her cheeks red and long strands of hair whipping around her face and he could see the, 'what the heck,' in her eyes, but she was all in.

"I figure…why should it be someone else? Sometimes…it's my turn. Sometimes I get picked, my car runs out of gas…my checking account gets overdrawn…three things break all at once…my dog dies…sometimes it's my turn. I'm not dead. And part of not being dead is the occasional kick in the ass…for the sake of character."

"You said that to people?"

"I made it a bit more theological…but essentially…I did."

She resituated her little feet and nodded, very serious.

"But the pain that can come in this life…the cruelty…we unleash on one another…as if it's not hard enough. The war dead. Yeah we had some of that. Small town kids fill a big number of those spaces. One year it's a graduation cap…then its dress greens. They're trying to launch…to make a place…an opportunity. Their dads went…their uncles…grandparents. So yeah it's tough when they don't come home…a car accident…we have our share, right? The sixteen year old who drank and drove or the sixteen year old mowed down because someone else drank and drove…it's senseless, but we can get it…somehow. We did that stuff too, right? We've all been reckless somewhere. Most of us get away with it. Cancer. The indiscriminate killer, but people rush to help, doctors…there's support. We're sad…but we're held…and there's a chance. The cancer is cruel…it can be…but sometimes it's a wake up call…sometimes it deepens us as a human being…there's a chance at least.

"But…willful…slaughter. It's another category. In war you see a wholesale motivation. Even with Hitler…an idealogy that you can rail against, stamp out…eventually defeat, not that it ever goes away.

"But terrorism without even a deceptive cause behind it, a perversion of religion, or politics, a terrorism where the self is the country and the self writes the ideology which becomes the justification only it's not based on anything beyond fantasy…a fantastical idea that you are god, you can be god, and everyone else is…a target.

"And to explode this self-deception, to execute your right to be god in a place where the other God's name has been held up for so long. It wasn't an accident he picked a church."

"But he'd worked there," Bella said. "He did his community service there for spraying graffiti."

"Yeah. That got him familiar with it."

"You knew him. Surely you did."

He looked at her. "No one knew him, Bella. If I had…oh god…the fantasies I've gone through. I figure out what a threat he is. I get it. I see what's right in front of my face, right there, and I turn him in. Just one realization. Maybe…maybe I could have stopped him."

"You know that's futile thinking, right?" she said, and her teeth were chattering, and this was a hellacious place to have this conversation.

"Yeah. Sure. I mean…it's done. It's all futile. But I have to ask myself…what have I learned?"

Well she had asked him that…and he'd gotten mad.

"I'm gonna make you crazy," he said. He was one thing then another.

"Go on," she said, grip on his arm.

"One of my fantasies…I kill him before. I just come up to him in the hallway and I kill him. I use…the rug scrubber he would run…I mean…while that thing was droning and he was leaning on it, those earphones in his ears…he was planning it then, and what did I do when I walked by, say, "How you doin'?" I remember one day I invited him to youth group. I can imagine how he must of fucked me off. There were times it was just him and me…and I'd take my pompous ass over to him and ask if he wanted a soda…."

She was rubbing Edward's arm, rubbing the story right out of his mouth.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly. He grabbed her and looked deeply into her eyes. "Bella…I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Her hands were on his face. She was shaking her head. "You couldn't know. You already know this…you couldn't know."

"What kind of fucked bubble was I living in? I was talking to troubled people all the time. What good was I doing? I stopped him…killed him…fuck it was the least I could do." He pulled her closer to the rail while his words worked their way up. "When I dove for him, he shot two more kids. One of those died."

She was shaking her head.

"Look," he said more calmly, before she could tell him it didn't matter. "I know. I get it. I know. But it's the truth. It's the truth. That's why…you and me…it can't be some weird form of worship or something fucked like that, Bella. Some white knight thing. Or you thinking I'm like your dad. You get it?"

"Don't blame yourself like this Edward," she said. "No one could have imagined…."

"I know that. I know that," he kept saying. "I'm telling you there are facts. They just are what they are. It's a balance. It's the truth. I'm one of the ones who might have stopped it…so when I did…when I really did stop him…it was about fucking time. It's just a fact, Bella. It's just the way it is."

To his surprise and relief, she looked at his chest and nodded. He realized again she was freezing. He put his arm around her and he felt hers come around his waist as they walked the long length of the pier.

"Thank you," he finally said, "for just…listening." He meant for letting him tell it his way. For not trying to change it or fix it or make it better. It was a lot of things to a lot of people and the type of thing that would be debated endlessly, but it was what he'd just said, too. And this was the first time he'd said his piece on it, and he was grateful she'd allowed him to.

When they got back to the house he ran the shower, and this time she came in the room and they undressed and under the hot spray he held her to him. He didn't want to use her to get somewhere else. He wanted to love her. He wanted to tenderly kiss her and touch her and show her with his hands and lips and eyes and breaths that he knew he was alive and he appreciated, he treasured…her.

When he could pull back from her he turned her to the wall and he reached over her head and took the spigot off the handle and shot hot water on the wall. Then he put the showerhead in place and leaned her on that warm stain, and he let the water sluice over his shoulder and down her chest and he had his hands on the wall either side of her and he rested his forehead on hers.

They stayed this way for a while. He loved that she would just be with him. She didn't perform, she didn't fill every silence she let things be messy she let them be real.

She made the first move. Her hands ran up his slick sides, over his chest and she cupped his face. He kept his eyes closed but he moved back so she could touch him wherever she wanted to. She spent some languid minutes on his eyebrows, his hair, his lips. He smiled when she touched his lips.

The smile was wiped when he felt her lips on his neck. He couldn't hold the shaky breath that burst through his mouth then. But he kept his hands on the tile, and she dragged her lips on his chest, and she walked around him, behind him now, and her arms around him, his waist because she was short, and her naked wet skin against him, him aware of every line and curve and pulse and her lips, and her face pressed against him, and he felt the shaking in her then, the racking tears, that mixed with the warm spray, and he let her use him then, wanted her to use him anyway she needed to, and she held him that way and she cried until he felt her still, until he'd leaned his elbows on the tile and his face on his hands while she cried it out. And she rested her face against him, but her hands moved along him, across his stomach, digging along him, her fingers, clutching him, moving over him quick and needy, but he knew to stay still, to let her work it out, until she dropped on her knees and he felt her against him, his legs, his butt, the small of his back, everywhere she kissed him, licked him, bit him, and he turned to her then, grabbed her arms and pulled her to her feet and kissed her red lips, and she crawled up him and his back hit the tile and her held her to him and he kissed her with abandon, with no care for anything but the kiss and this woman, and his mouth open he was everywhere on her, panting like a beast, like he would bite her to pieces and swallow her down, let her inside of him…inside…and she moved so he could thrust up into her body and they were joined and she bore down on him as he put her on the wall and pushed in to her, until they ended up sitting on the floor of the shower, her over him, him in as deep, and he turned them and laid her on the floor and she kissed him, hungrily kissed him as her fingers dug into him, as she opened herself as wide, and he felt the water pelting his back, and he felt specifics and he felt one big crazed ending and she said his name again and again and he said, my god, my god, Bella.

And it blew through them and over and the water tapped him and tapped him until he was aware where they were, and he lifted on his elbow and looked at her face, wrecked and wild and sweet and love filled.

"Oh Bella," he said. "Oh my Bella."


	11. Chapter 11

Leaping 11

Holding her during the night he was awakened by the haunting voice of memory shouting in to his sleep.

At first he was disoriented, wide-eyed. Had someone screamed?

He listened and let his heart-rate slow. No. There was him. There was her.

He'd been dreaming. He'd remembered. His brain wanted to take him there, had taken him there…met him in this deep filmy place, Bella in his arms.

They could come if they wanted to, the assembly of players, the pop, pop of the weapon, the emotions that lingered like barking dogs that couldn't bite…ghost fangs bared…ghosts.

He allowed them, the sad sticky shadows, he didn't fight…the memories…his brain a projector flickering images and sounds.

He was done with this story…done with it…but it wasn't done with him. It never would be.

That day…that bookmark in his life, that crater hole, that nuclear explosion, that place where it went down, the sanctuary. It still smelled like flowers from a funeral the day before, a mother, a teacher, texting, crossing the line and meeting Tom Birdy's dump truck on that curve, that bad curve on the bottom road, and the tires clawing thick black on the pavement as she tried to right the wrong, tried to get back on the straight and narrow, too late, too late, she'd driven into Tom like a future that wouldn't budge and she'd taken off, jettisoned…into eternity.

The flower scent was still strong. He'd thought that all day, how weird it was to work in a place where on his walk through the sanctuary to the back of the complex of buildings connected by hallways, on his way to fetch a bottle of water, or to shoot some hoops, there was often, before the altar, a body in a casket. He'd usually know the person, and he'd say, "Morning," he would say that.

But that day he'd wanted to finish work early, not that they were ever finished, they never were. He'd been up all night, called to a sick bed at the county hospital two towns over, an older woman, someone's mother, the family crowded in the room there, and him crowded with them, mourning with the mourners, smiling at the stories, taking his turn leaning over the bed, fishing his spirit for comfort, reassuring her God was waiting now, take off the body like a worn suit of clothes, His arms, His arms will be your new home.

So Edward hadn't had much sleep on that day…thee day…but the day was going fast and the last thing he did, before the Boy Scouts showed up, he met with Jackson in his office.

And he remembered he hadn't been able to stop yawning while Jackson did his best to railroad the conversation, to keep it on how fucked his teachers were to be flunking him in two of his classes.

Edward finished another yawn, a jaw clicker. "C'mon, man," he said to the boy sitting other side of his desk. "And stop the f-bombs."

Jackson was sixteen and large as a man…but a ten year old's brain in the driver's seat. Edward had been meeting with him every Monday after school for the past two months. Jackson had been in trouble for fighting. He hadn't initiated, but had responded so the school called Edward, as the principal knew Edward would work with a kid to keep him out of trouble.

Jackson could bench press three hundred pounds. Damage potential was staggering. There was no dad and a mom who was afraid of him. Jackson had one go-to emotional response to most things—anger.

And here's the irony, "Violence," Edward said for the twentieth time, patient, hoping one of these times it would get in there, "is never the answer."

He said that, 'never,' rolling off his naive, arrogant lips. But he added, "Someone breaks in to your house tonight wearing a black ski mask and holding a knife to your little brother's throat…."

"I'd jack him good," Jackson interjected.

"Go for it. It's extreme, see? It's for being a hero. Violence is for heroic measure in extreme circumstance. Anything else…find another way. Use that strength God gave you to protect people. Don't be the scary guy. Don't be him."

That's when the office coordinator asked Edward if he'd over-see the Boy Scouts. They were practicing for Sunday and Terry, their leader, was running late.

Edward was glad to be able to cut it short with Jackson so he could move around and wake himself up.

He bumped fists with Jackson, and that one nearly came with him, wanting to cut through the sanctuary to shoot some hoops, but his cell phone went off and after answering, Jackson went left…and Edward went right.

Everything mattered. People wondered why they weren't spared…but with everything hinging on every small decision…how many times had he been spared…they been spared with no idea…it was all in a turn…left…right.

It wasn't chance. He knew that. It was choice. You walked a path, there was design, there was purpose. He knew that. There was choice. Left. Right. He'd been called into that room. Maybe that's the whole reason he'd been born. That's what he knew all of a sudden. In this incident, in this event, he'd been the divine intervention. Him. It was that way, that time. He wasn't a hero. He was just a man…who'd been called, no different than what he did any other day…he served. But the task…the fucking task that day…the guy with the ski mask had shown…up. And he, Edward, got scary.

Bella stirred, and he said, "Babe."

She leaned up and kissed him soft and sweet, her eyes heavy with sleep…and love. "Can you hug me?" she asked, and he laughed some, she was in his arms already, but he pulled her closer yet and she scooted half on top of him and he tightened his grip and she did hers and they floated there.

He didn't say it…but another piece of the empty was filled. Another bit of understanding…acceptance for what was.

They had spent three days, and him barely aware, three slow days that went by like precious water leaking from a bucket, time he couldn't stop or get back, three days of together, and baring Mrs. Cope coming in to clean, there was no one.

The other…interruption was her phone. Her son was with a family, a friend's family. He called a couple of times a day. She would always step away from Edward, and he'd pretend to give her privacy. He'd try not to fixate on her like a human GPS, her his destination. In those times he would ask himself what right he had to be with her like this, to want her so desperately he could barely give her space of any kind.

He wouldn't judge it. He wouldn't hold it to some fucking article in O magazine. Or some theological strain of idolatry either, he just was. He was with her and he wanted to be. Needed to be. She was his gift.

They weren't wasting time. She'd said that at the first, the backwards thing. Not wasting time. No sooner had he thought all this than her phone rang and she rolled off of him to answer. He didn't allow his eyes to follow, but he was with her and it was intense, this bond to her, this blend.

Like usual, she stepped away, went in to the bathroom. He tried not to feel…so much. Did he love her?

If he wasn't already on his back, he might be knocked on it now. Did he love her?

"I haven't been away from Seth…since…," she said coming back to the bed to crawl in beside Edward.

He cleared his throat. He hadn't moved since she left and she crawled back where she'd been, her breath warm on his chest, and she fit there…she fit perfectly.

"How's he doing with it?" His voice sounded weird.

"Pretty well. He misses me, and…I miss him. He sounded…I don't know. I've got a sixth sense for him, and it comes from more than being his mother."

Of course it did, but it worried Edward, and he stupidly hoped he could be enough, but of course this was her son, and all they'd been through, but still he had a flash of jealousy.

"Are you glad you're here?" he said, knowing he was an asshole.

"Yes," she answered quickly and that helped some.

He'd become so self-centered, he realized. But he only wanted to borrow her…for this short time…this sliver of her existence. He knew he couldn't keep her…or he'd known that five minutes ago. Now he didn't know anything. But he wanted this last week and some change…please.

But now. She stretched. She rearranged herself and leaned her back on the padded headboard, grabbed the remote off her nightstand and clicked on the television.

He slowly, reluctantly aped her posture. Well, the damn phone had broken them apart.

He tried to focus on their surroundings. It was raining outside, the clear slashes marking the big windows, the ocean boiling beyond. Across from the bed the mounted flat-screen showed the morning news. She had the volume all the way down and the words typed across the bottom.

She'd told him how she'd fallen into the habit of television without sound. At first it was her control, trying to set a healthy atmosphere for Seth, one where the voices in the flat screen didn't get to permeate her home while Seth did homework or played in his room or tried to sleep. But now it was her preference.

Edward liked it, the quiet that allowed the ocean's voice coming from beyond the windows. He had not been able to tolerate much television since the incident, he had not wanted to fill his mind with all the brokenness this world held.

"Seth and I," Bella said, "we've been stuck together so long. I knew it was time to at least…stretch the cord. It's hard to trust, being apart. But…it was time."

She always knew what to say. He wanted to know about this…her son…her relationship with him. He wondered if the boy would ever be open to his mother having someone else. "There was his step dad and…?"

"Just him," she said quietly. "I figured…that was enough. Jacob…he called Seth at first, after the…."

"Incident," Edward said.

"Yeah. He's…overseas. Traveling was always a complication…one I didn't sign up for. I was alone two-thirds of our two years. I married a settled man…a professor…who expanded his career to include overseas travel as soon as our marriage proved difficult. He wasn't ready to be a husband…much less a father. He wasn't ready to learn how to be with us.

"They say it's what men do…cling to what they are good at when their relationships tank. They work."

"Yeah," he said. "We do." Work had always been his life raft. He wondered now why Tanya had put up with it. With him. He was telling himself to be quiet and listen, but inside himself, there was dread over what Bella would reveal.

"Jacob had never been married. He was a good boyfriend, good at beginnings…sweeping me off my feet, and it took something…I wasn't looking for a relationship. I had Seth and Dad, and our lives worked, and maybe...I didn't trust myself to pick well."

Edward felt a bit of a sting at that omission. Would she have approached him if she was more cautious? In truth, he didn't think so.

"But…I don't know…Jacob found this lonely place in me I didn't even know I had and…turned out it was bigger than I knew.

"So after almost a year I let him meet Seth and initially they got along great. But I kept exposure to a minimum so the problems didn't show up until well in to the second year. They didn't seem drastic enough. Seth adored him. He was fun. He was…kind.

"Then right before our wedding…I surprised him at the university where he worked. He wasn't where he was supposed to be, but he came from somewhere else, disheveled…and I looked at him…and I just knew.

"He denied. We broke up. He admitted it, he reformed. He launched a grand campaign to win me back…and I caved. I took him back. My dad was ready to disown me. But we married and it was…okay. I didn't realize…he was only good at beginnings.

"Next I found out about his financial problems. I confronted. He lied. I withdrew. He admitted everything. We got counseling, he got financial counseling. He got on a path, he fell off, I made him account. I stopped sleeping with him. I could barely look at him. He resorted to…jealousy over every move I made, every minute I spent with Seth.

"I found texts…I confronted…he lied. It happened again. He worked with young people. Trust…didn't exist. He was on the emotional level of a teenager. I became his shrew of a mother.

"I also had my dad…my stable, wonderful dad and he showed up in my and Seth's lives like gold against Jacob's…asshatery. My dad hated Jacob…well any threat to Seth or myself. Dad supported my decision to ask Jacob to leave, and I gave him plenty of time to get help, and when that didn't appear to be happening I started divorce proceedings. As soon as he was back in the States after one of his trips, he signed. He was as relieved as I was that it was over. But I still had Seth. And Dad. Well…so…that's me."

In Edward's mind that took them right back to James. Edward wondered again if they would always end up there, at the military boots of James Carson. He'd only known Charlie Swan as the murdered chief of police from a near by town, the body hanging out of the back pew, the dark hair, the arm, the empty hand.

They had just cleaned up breakfast when Bella took the call that Seth had a fever. His caregiver was asking permission to take him to the emergency room. His temperature was spiking 105. He was a twelve year old boy, but after having a bullet bounce around in his chest, Bella didn't take chances. She told Edward this as she flew upstairs quickly packing her clothes and personal items. He followed, then stood there fighting the urge to pack a bag, too.

He couldn't ask her not to go, he couldn't do that. Seth needed his mother. But to think she might not make it back to him, well she couldn't. Shouldn't. It was a long trip and…it was just a few days.

"I'll take you," he said. He heard those words and he was as thrown to say them as she seemed to receive them.

She had stopped, then slowed, but she was moving again, albeit she was thinking.

"I mean…to the airport…or…whatever you need. I could drive you home. Be with you."

She looked at him and blew some hair out of her face. "It's…not so simple. I wanted you to meet him…but…."

"Tell me what you need."

She slowly finished packing, but she wouldn't look at him while she figured it out. He slowly started to pull his bag out of the closet and think about what to put in it.

"It's a ten hour drive," she said from the bathroom door. Maybe that was easier, her uncharacteristically deferring, allowing him to decide a matter that involved her son.

"I'll stay at a motel. He doesn't have to see me. But I'll be there for you."

She shook her head. "How would that work?"

"I don't know," he said unzipping his shaving kit. "Whatever you need."

She was chewing her lip. "I…is that selfish of me?"

"I asked." Begged, he thought. "I could just take you…and leave. Unless…." A stare off now, a waiting.

She shook her head. "It's a lot to ask. This is your vacation, your time."

It wasn't. It wasn't even a life. Not now.

"I want to go…if…it would help." And then, "We said three weeks." And he waited.


	12. Chapter 12

Leaping 12

Bella was on the phone for the first hour as they sped toward Missouri. She talked to Irina, the caregiver, she talked to Seth, the one cared for. Seth hadn't wanted to go to the hospital. He'd been livid. But his pediatrician said he would meet them there.

Edward was seeing another side of Bella, focused and direct, strength in her voice, brass in her spine. But inside of her, the churning nougat center—fear.

And a hellacious load of guilt. She'd tried to branch out, reach out by coming to the beach. "Before I conquer backwards living, I need to learn how to go forward," she said, self-loathing, clutching the phone Edward sensed she wanted to throw to make her point.

He pulled into the rest-stop. It couldn't have come at a better time. He had to piss, yeah, but that wasn't it. He needed to hold her.

"Come here," he said as soon as he stopped the car.

"Edward…there's no time."

Okay. There was no time. So this was it. No time. And they'd been milking it, time, selfishly milking it, pulling all the nectar out, the sweetness, and now they were duty bound. Duty was always tapping its foot, waiting, disgusted, its arms crossed, its lips stacked.

"I need to hold you," he said. That's it. That's all he had.

She moved over to him, and he put the seat back and he took her on his lap, and she was closed, a bundle for him to wrap his snaky arms around, a hostage to his…idea.

He kissed her cheek for starters, moved her hair behind her shoulder so there would be no barrier between them. "He's going to be fine. They said a virus."

"He's been through enough," she said fierce. It stung, it just did. But he was patient. He was, by nature, a calming influence on the distraught. And he'd had so much practice.

He held out his hand. "Put them right there."

"What?" she said, her eyes fiery, her voice shaky.

"All your troubles, all your cares."

She stared at his hand for a second. "Edward." She closed her eyes and swallowed loudly.

"C'mon," he chided.

"I can't. It's too much," she whispered, eyes still closed.

"Then share. Give me half," he said.

She slowly lifted her hand and lightly touched his palm. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Hey," he said, and she opened her eyes. "Take a breath. You're not alone."

"Edward," she moaned, her arms coming around him, her head dropping to his shoulder. He held her there and rocked a little. She was soft on him, finally giving over.

After a couple of minutes she kissed him and straightened before sliding in to her seat. He could feel her sense of duty coming back to life. He reminded her he had half now.

"You've got a way," she said, then she burst in to tears.

He spent the next five minutes letting her cry it out while he kept his arms around her. His shoulder was soaked by the time she quieted down. He dug the small box of Kleenex out of the glove box and wiped at her face and she took over.

She was sniffing and blowing and wiping and still crying and laughing and apologizing.

"Have to take a piss," he said unsnapping his seatbelt.

"Oh…so do I." She opened her door and got out. He stepped quickly to her and took her arm. They walked to the center arms entwined. They broke apart at the glass doors and he knew regret. He told himself to get a damn grip, he couldn't accompany her into the john, could he? Damn.

He was out first, at the soda machine, punching for two Cokes, his full of sugar, hers diet.

He had these when she came out, and she seemed a tablespoon less wrecked as she took the can, popped it and drank.

"Thank you…Edward…for everything. I barged in to your life…." Her statement dwindled and he pulled her to him and kissed the top of her head.

"Edward," she said very earnestly, drawing back to look at him, "are you…you make me feel so…Edward…do you think you could ever…."

"Yes," he said. Yes to everything she didn't have words for. Just yes.

They walked back to his car at a normal pace her hand in his. She was crying again, but it wasn't like before. He knew she needed to let it out, he knew she would be alright.

He opened her door and she smiled at him as she got in. She had no idea how endless his patience was when he wanted it to be. Leastways he was that way…before. Now…he had no idea, but came to her…anything seemed possible.

So he drove and it was quiet, no radio, no music, and he'd taken her hand, moving his thumb over each of her fingers, and she looked at him every few minutes, adoration, no other word, and it got to him, Lord it liquefied any crumb of resistance he had left.

She was lovely in the light, the bright shine, she was lovely in the gray shadow when the sun dipped. She was just lovely.

"You know what? He's going to be fine," she said, getting off her cell for the tenth time. "Irina said they are not going to keep him. They are sending him home. So I dragged you into this…."

"That's good though. That's what…we wanted." Well, he'd wanted it too, in case she was thinking he'd only count this trip worthwhile if Seth was near death.

"We could…eat," he said, eyebrows raised, and she laughed.

"I'm sorry. I lose my appetite when it comes to him. I lost so much weight when he was in the hospital. I'm still…not normal."

"This is the new normal," he said, not entirely serious, but it was what they called it, after loss, in grief-speak. New normal was a bubble way off-center.

"I'll eat if you put it right in front of me…when I'm like that. I just…forget."

"Yeah. I understand." It was all understatement now. He got it. He did.

They were moving toward her life. Real life. 'He was great at beginnings,' she'd said about Jacob. Did that mean…what did that mean? Is that why she'd wanted to start at the end with Edward? It wasn't possible. She'd understood that…right? It was just a game. He probably sucked at the middle, at the end, he was the worst at endings. Talk about duty-bound. He'd stay a course for fucking ever.

He'd only made it through the beginning because she had stayed with him, switching the rules, whatever it took to get close to him. But how would it be now? How would they sustain it? There was Seth. And she was so deeply enmeshed with her son…he knew about that. He'd studied that. Going to the beach was her attempt to separate. She'd said as much. He realized now what a big step that had been. Not just the seduction, the manipulation, her declaration she wasn't a woman who could drop her dress…couldn't sustain it. What a leap. What a fucking leap.

And now that Seth had survived the shooting, her new nightmare…Seth needing her and her not being there. Just like that day…the incident. She couldn't save him. That was the message wasn't it? That was the gospel now. She couldn't save her father, she couldn't save her son…but she could be vigilant. Oh god…she was that.

"So," he said, "what's going on in that brain of yours?" He said this in that new strange voice he had somehow conjured just for her. His professionalism had been blown to hell. It would never work with her anyway. It had helped him to gain distance from his own emotions and the emotions of others when they needed a leader and not someone as paralyzed by grief as they were. Professionalism allowed the distance…so he could serve…function…be counted on to keep a cool head while someone's world blew to hell…to hell.

"Don't use that on me," Bill would tell him though, to keep him honest. Bill would make him account. How was he doing…really doing…that was Bill's favorite question, and Edward would try to hold him off…with professionalism and all its bullshit, and Bill would plow right through, all the way to the lava inside, the fatigue and the anger and the disgust and Edward's promise to himself that he was going to quit and get a real job, one with hours, benefits commensurate with risk, one he could leave at the office because it didn't involve someone's despair, or shitty circumstances, one where when he finished, he put something on a shelf and it stayed, or he was given a task and he could complete it. He wanted that. He wanted some damn control as badly as she did.

"Edward, my hand," Bella whispered.

He pulled away, gripping the wheel. "God, I'm sorry."

"What's going on in your brain? That's the question," she said, her hand coming to his neck, fingers combing through his hair. Oh God, he wanted that…wanted her. What were they doing in this fucking car?

"I…I was thinking about my old boss. Pastor Bill." He laughed but it was forced. Nothing about this was funny. "I pretty much…ran out on him." Wow. He said it. Shit. Not now. Not ever did he plan to put it like that.

"You're not a runner," she said.

Well, she didn't know him. "Bella…I am so far from perfect…you know that, right?"

She laughed, but she kept stroking his neck and he tried not to shiver.

"There're restaurants at this exit," she said. "I'm sorry I have such a one-track mind that your needs have been…ignored. God, I'm a total ass."

"Mothers," Edward teased.

Things lightened between them a little bit. He ordered fast food. At first she didn't want to eat, then decided she'd take ice cream. He scoffed at that and ordered her a meal and ice cream. She protested some, but he could tell she liked it, too. He realized she had probably not been taken care of since her father was killed.

While they waited for their turn at the window she said, "If the people you love aren't safe…nothing means anything."

He stayed quiet, his ears straining.

"It's like…you're spiritually emaciated and the world is cream…and you can't take any of it in," she said, "not a dollop…not a lick."

He waited, and her face was turned from him and she was staring out her window, watching a family, a mom and dad loading two toddlers into their van. "Sometimes…I want to be them…or anyone…who doesn't know what it feels like…."

He yanked on her hand now, to break her fixation on the little family. "Hey."

She turned to him, and her eyes were shiny and she smiled. "But…you. You're my taste…my bite…."

"I'm right here, you know," he said.

"You are?"

"Yeah," he said. "Right here."


	13. Chapter 13

Leaping 13

It was dark when Edward and Bella reached the parking lot at the airport. That's where she'd left her five year old Nissan. So they were spared the complication of Edward having to drop her at her home.

After a long, silent hug, she kissed him sweetly. "We…I don't know now. Our three weeks? I mean…we haven't said." She put her fingers on his lips before he could answer. "Don't say."

She was afraid it was over. That gave him some hope…her fear.

"We haven't talked about it. Not in ten hours," she whispered, a sad smile.

He slowly pulled her hand away and gripped it over his heart.

"I told you…whatever you want."

She scrunched her face a little. "That's…so passive," same sad smile.

It was anything but. "Nevertheless, not my will but thine."

She smirked. "Gethsemane?"

"I'm sweating blood."

"Wow," she said so softly.

She looked at his chest, fiddled with a button on his shirt. "I need to…get the lay of the land."

He understood that. Seth.

"It's so difficult to part," she whispered, her eyes on him now, the tear-shine.

He dry-swallowed. Shit. He was not wanting to do this now…in a garage. He wanted their room…at the beach…her…he wanted, he wanted.

"You need to get going. You can call me." It was the right thing to do…to say. Give her permission to go. Bless the departure, even if it was ruined, he was ruined.

She was nodding, fiddling with his button still. "I…I don't know if I can go back…to…to the beach." Her eyes, on him, pulling at him, at his heart. "I've…been afraid to say it."

"Go on," he said taking both of her hands now, stepping back, trying to break this thing, this force that held them.

"It's hurting me to leave you. I hurt," she said, and he saw the tears welling. She was guilty, and she shouldn't be. She was guilty toward her son and now him. She was too quick to blame herself. This couldn't be helped. But still, he hurt, too…his chest, his stomach.

"Let's not make it so hard," he said. "I'll call you as soon as I'm settled. I'll be around."

"That helps," she said. "Promise?"

"You think I'll just take off? Never call?"

"I wouldn't blame you. You have a right."

"You call me. Ball is in your court."

"So…it's not over? I mean…."

"Call me," he said again. Over? It would never be over in the truest sense of the word. What was she to him? "You think it's been…light? Like I'm not affected?" he said, impatient now, angry and he didn't know why.

She was shaking her head. "I guess I'm drowning here. I'm not asking…I don't know what I'm asking. I just…I'm afraid you'll leave."

"I wouldn't do that. Unless…if you need me to. I would tell you first." He didn't know if he could leave her. But she had a son, and it wasn't just up to him.

"I'm sorry. I'm…freaking out." She rubbed her face and he saw how tired she was.

"Hey," he said stepping close. "You okay to drive?"

"Yeah," she said too heartily. "I…sorry. I just…sorry."

His hands were on her arms and he pulled her to him for a hug. "I'll follow you to your exit. Take it slow."

She nodded against him. He was finding the familiar territory of comforter. Of doing the right thing.

One quick kiss. He backed off and grazed her arm with his little finger. Then he loaded her bag into her backseat and she was in and he was all business now, a quick wave and getting back in his car, carefully following her out of the garage and onto the highway.

He didn't follow her car, he followed her, the shape of her head lighting up in the dark as cars passed from behind, as highway-lights graced him with a better glimpse. They could barely stand to part. He wanted to follow her home, all the way home, and for a while he'd consoled himself with the thought that he would do just that, but the closer they got to her exit the more he knew he couldn't do that, shouldn't. That's not what she'd asked for.

She beeped as she turned off and he responded.

It was hard to press on, to see her take the fork in the road, to take a different path from hers. She hadn't pressed for which motel, he hadn't volunteered because he didn't know.

And here was the thing, two more exits and he'd hit Sydney. Bella had to wonder where he was going. She had to wonder if he was returning. He hadn't spoken to her about it, God the things they had not spoken about.

It's not like he never said he wouldn't return to Sydney. But he never planned to. Alice had seen to the sale of his house, his hundred year old house made from a kit ordered from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue and originally costing less than one thousand dollars. He'd paid twelve. The place was ramshackle by the time he adopted it, not untypical in a town of less than five thousand.

He'd always gotten a kick out of that house, drafty and rotten and impractical, small rooms and windows, slanting floors and the furnace's bad breath. Yeah he was sick. He liked the odd thing, the different thing, the somewhat broken. Always did.

He'd worked on it, his little house, had lots of help from this or that kid looking for a project. Bill used to kid him for exploiting child labor. Truth be told the 'help' they gave him usually amounted to more trouble than it was worth, but the object was the time spent…the relationships he tried to build so he could be allowed a look in to their hearts, or to speak the right sentence, at the right time…to get out front of a problem…for once.

Bella's town, where her father had been chief of police…was shoulder to shoulder with his old town. They practically had their arms around each other, well they did, with little Whitney in-between. Little Whitney, home to some big country western singer who never came back, never did…until the incident. These were the places you left, the places you wrote about, thought about, fought against or romanticized, for the rest of your life.

His old home—Sydney in general-he didn't know if he could look at it again. He didn't know what good it would do.

Sydney was a small place. It didn't even have a marketable history. They said Lincoln spoke there once. Or slept there. Or took a shit there. But now…it wore a badge, it sure as hell did.

But it wasn't exactly…anything. Mostly cornfields, little milo. Two stoplights in the last decade and a refurbished movie theatre. A Chinese restaurant. German farm country. No outstanding geography, but the subtle beauty of changing crops and rocky pasture and grazing cows, of dramatic sunsets and the peaceful attitude of a middle child neither the star not the darling. A middle child of the Midwest.

He was an outsider, allowed in because of Bill, because the church had the roots he lacked, because he'd eaten their potluck dinners, praised God for good crops…and held them at the altar, in hospitals, at gravesides. Coddled their babies and tosseled the hair of their children and shown respect to their grandmothers and laughed at the dry quiet humor of the men. And the women, they cooked for him, baked for him, mothered him, and introduced him to their daughters and he was careful, so careful to never forget who he was, wearing a trust that came with the job the way a priest would wear vestments, the call, wearing it with deliberation and earning the right.

Well, he was an outsider, but he got on.

And then he killed James Carson. And then he went away.


	14. Chapter 14

Leaping 14

"Where are you?" Bella texted Edward hours later.

He was in a motel room in Little Whitney. He'd never made it to Sydney, didn't want to.

So he was lying on his back on a full-sized bed, on a green plaid bedspread he was sure would show up filthy in a black-light test. His clothes were on, his shoes were off, and he hadn't dug down yet to the sheets. He didn't think he would.

This was the room they used in those movies…those movies where the guy and gal checked in and never got out.

"In Whitney," he typed back.

He held his phone against his stomach as he stared at the gray popcorn ceiling and breathed the pale cigarette stained air. He wasn't waiting for her response…necessarily. He wasn't feeling much either, just staring, just being. He wasn't sleepy. He had no answers, and worse…no questions.

The manager had recognized him at the desk, not him, but his name. Yes, I am that Edward Cullen. He had said that to the old timer. Hell of a thing, yes it was, old timer said. Hell of a thing. Then the questions started, and he had evaded. It wasn't hard. It wasn't easy. It just was.

"The Rosebud?" Bella texted minutes later.

It was the only motel in Whitney. Only one that had endured the stories one small berg could produce.

"Yes," he wrote back.

An hour later there was a knock. He was still staring. It was Bella. He knew that. But he hadn't expected it. Expected her.

She'd been crying. "I…couldn't stay away," she said.

"Who is with Seth?" he asked…and why? He wasn't a parent. Bella had the mind for the right decisions. Why did he ask?

"No one. He isn't running a temp. He's sleeping. I left a note if he wakes up, but it's the middle of the night. He's twelve. He knows my cell. I'm fifteen minutes. Twenty at most."

"Okay," Edward said, then he pulled her in, arms around her.

"How are you?" she asked, her face against him.

"I don't know," he said. He was fine…he just didn't know.

"Come home with me," she said. "Come home with me and sleep on the couch."

He was already shaking his head.

"We can't be apart," she said.

Oh. But they could. They had to be. They couldn't leap to that. That…was too much. To not be able to be apart? What was she saying? But…that's why he was here, right? He wasn't ready to let her go.

Just for the three weeks. He wanted those.

"You shouldn't be alone," she clarified, looking at him. "You haven't been back here."

"It's okay."

"I don't know what I was thinking…to let you do this…then to be so preoccupied. What was I asking? Thinking?"

"It doesn't matter," he said. He wasn't her son. He wasn't Seth. "It's my choice to stay. You may need a ride…back." Was it time to say good-bye? Was it suddenly that time?

This was her chance to tell him. He took his arms away, stepped away. "How was it with Seth?"

"He…he wants to go back with me. He…he feels better. I don't know what it was…a virus. What the heck is that?" she scrubbed over her face, and he knew he should put his arms around her, give her permission to be where she was, to go with it like a good…lover.

"You would take him back…to the beach?"

She looked at him. Into him, God those eyes, that look of hers, so deep.

"He has school," she said, as though arguing with him…with herself.

What the hell was he doing? They had enough…this mother and her son. She was a mother…not his whore. He knew better. The same old thing…his morality, his code, the vestments, the mental shroud…he knew better than to take a woman…and her so vulnerable…no commitment…treat her like…take…take.

"I…Bella…."

"No," she said. "Don't you dare….."

"It's caught up with us Baby…real life."

"I'm not afraid of that," she said.

"No? You should be."

"Why's that?" she took another step.

He had his hand up, like to hold her away. "There's no future."

"You're not ready? You're not ready for what…life? The only thing stopping us…this…is you, then."

"Me? What did I ever agree to? Three weeks. You didn't even make it."

"I have a son," she said fierce.

"Exactly," he answered back, just as fierce, but more like an asshole. He was an asshole.

"You can't love him?"

"I haven't talked love," he defended himself. He was out to win now, win this losing battle.

"But you've made it…love…to me. Don't tell me I imagined…I know what it was."

He shook his head. "What have we said, Bella? What have I said?"

"Words," she whispered, as if they were an afterthought to what was real, as if they were secondary and over-rated, and he couldn't agree more, but that didn't mean they were worthless, useless. Words were commitment. Words…were everything for them.

"You're looking for a way out. That's what this is. You're waiting just long enough to leave so you can feel good about yourself. You even drove me home. What an upstanding mother-fucker you are," she said intensely, crying.

Mother-fucker was exactly what he was. "I have had no plan beyond being with you for a well stated amount of time. You changed the game—intentional or not."

Now she shook her head. "I shouldn't have come. You're thrown. You're using it now. If you let it go further…well you won't. You're cutting your losses. I get it."

"Because I won't come home with you and sleep on the couch? How long do you think that would last? Then what? Seth calls me Uncle Edward and we talk over old times? What the hell then? Do I move in? Maybe we fix the past by setting up a life where I over-protect and you get dependent and we both dote on him as a way to fix it all."

She was shaking her head, scrunching her face like she smelled something bad. "Stop it."

"I don't know what to do," he said too loudly.

She was still shaking her head.

"How do you go from so fucked up to normal?" he said.

"You mean…I thought what we had…was real."

"You did?" he couldn't believe it. "What part? Me seeing your son get shot? Or you tricking me in to some kind of fucked…fantasy? Or this here where we try to legitimize this fucking mess? 'Hey Seth, this is Edward Cullen, you remember him? Let's uproot your whole life cause Edward doesn't think he can be around here…it's kind of a downer for him now, okay buddy?'"

She took the final step and hit him on the chest like she was hammering nails in to his chest. He grabbed her wrists. "Bella," he said.

She was crying and her face was down, she was making a sound, an animal's frustration. He was sorry he'd said all this, hurt her. He put his arms around her but she broke away and turned away and bent over, and she was sobbing her heart out.

"Bella," he said again, trying to help her straighten, but she fought him off and he stepped back. The manager was there, pushing the door open. They had never closed it tightly.

"The police is on her way," the manager said.

"It's alright," Edward said to him impatient.

"You okay girlie?" the manager asked, ignoring Edward. He nearly laughed to see the pistol in the man's hand.

Bella calmed some. "Yes…Mr. Janes."

"That you Bella?"

Of course he knew her.

"We were arguing. Sorry. No need to bring Evelyn in." She meant the one cop in this berg.

Mr. Janes eyed Edward coldly. Well he would know how violent Edward could be…killer and all.

When Janes was satisfied enough to leave, Bella held onto the door. It was cold, but Edward welcomed it. She looked at him. "Please don't leave without meeting him."

"Was that always your goal? Is that…you said right away…when we met you said I should meet Seth."

"I'm not going to answer that," she said, like he was so far off. "But if you met him…it would be good for you both, Edward. Then…well…you're your own man. It's all I ask…and I know it's a lot. Would you meet Seth?"

"Why are you pushing?" he said.

"Would you?"

"If we had finished this at the beach, what was your plan?"

She grew very still, looking out at the dark parking lot. "I had a ticket…a return flight. I would have said good-bye."

"I don't believe you."

"You didn't ask me what I would have hoped for, Edward. You asked what I planned to do."

"What did you hope for? Marriage?" He felt like a huge ass even saying that word.

She smirked, but the tears were still hanging around. "Marriage…Edward…for me…would take the same courage you would have to find…to meet Seth."

"I'm not afraid to meet Seth," he said immediately.

She didn't comment.

"Are you afraid of marriage to me…or in general?"

She looked at him. "I…can't tell them apart."

Now that hurt.

"So what did you hope for?" he asked, his voice strange.

"What happened between us…much as you deny it…misname it…exceeded what I hoped for."

He had no response to that.

"We're both afraid," she said fiercely. "Do you get that? We both are. The only difference is…I'm willing. I didn't have the luxury of taking myself away…I had to stay here…live in it…face it every day. So fear? What's that? Fear is where I live!" She came quickly to him, making the fists again, moving them toward him, but stopping short of letting them land.

He hadn't moved. He was looking at her, feeling the first ray of hope and he had no idea why.

"Bella…I…," he whispered, incredulous. He knew. He finally knew. She was right. He'd been so afraid.

He grabbed her then, wrapped his arms around her, cradled her head against him as her hands clawed over him, even in to his hair, and she said his name several times, and he didn't fight it, or want to.

When she parted, she looked wrecked, exhausted. But there was a new peace between them. Something had dropped there, an emotional bridge of sorts that bore their combined weight and let them be in this strange new land. They'd been ugly and ridiculous and intense and real and desperate. And still…Edward was coming to her house for supper. It was a moon-walk now, one giant step for mankind…for them…meatloaf at five…and Seth.


	15. Chapter 15

Leaping 15

Once Bella left the Rosebud Edward sat on the bed while the residue of everything died in the room, even the fresh air that blew through when she'd held the door open, even that slowly succumbed to the staleness. Somewhere in there he had laid back…and somewhere in there he'd fallen asleep.

It was three o'clock when he awoke and remembered where he was. He took a shower in the chipped bathroom. He shaved, he changed his shirt. He paid for another night cause he'd slept through checkout, but he packed his shit in his car because it felt right and better to have no ties to Whitney, none at all. Then he drove toward Danville, through the bottoms, that flooded in the spring until the road was buried in the swollen creek, but not this evening, not now, but what did happen here, what came of it…James Carson was from this neck of the woods, this nothing place where human beings grew on the quiet, brewed and stewed and came of age.

It made his chest tight to be driving through here, the turn off with those weird mules right on the road, the fence there, those mules that looked albino. It was strange country here, not quaint, not colloquial, just fucking strange.

He hadn't tried to set the blame…for James Carson's existence. He was a fallen man. He had loaned himself to evil…James had. He had opened his heart to the devil.

It was never spoken about…a person embracing the dark…wanting the dark…making plans to kill the way others planned vacations or how to journey through school and achieve a degree.

James chose. He chose it. He wasn't forced. He wasn't encouraged. He took a hundred small steps and he achieved his goal. That's it.

The evil in James Carson was ancient. He wasn't a product of modern times or modern life. He was a product of the original villain, the one whose aim it was to take down mankind from the beginning.

James Carson had committed. That fact remained in Edward's mind…like a battle-cry.

He stopped on the bridge, the cement stretch of road that went over the creek. He stopped in the middle of it and left his car door open. He stood there and looked at the water moving through, the cold sludge of it, not as magnificent as the ocean, just a creek full of piss and dead things…and he spit in the water. He watched it slog past, all brown, going under his feet, under the road, moving past, moving on, going no where.

He looked up and around. A buck was in the tree line taking a drink. He'd lived through hunting season, good for him. Not everything…everyone was so lucky.

The sky…it held the color of sunset, had held it all day, twilight blue and gray. The trees were dark, the vegetation leather brown and blowing about. He could hear another vehicle and he got back in his own and slowly pulled off the bridge, but he did not stay the course to Danville, he turned off at the old apple orchard and he took that road, that bent limb of a road and he followed its winding path. A woman was at her mailbox and he stopped there and scared her some probably, and she peered at him.

He lowered his window. "Carsons still around here?" he said.

She was there, mouth hanging open on her box and she pushed that shut and held it, mail in her other hand. He couldn't have told anyone how she was dressed, but she had the look of hard work, hard times, hard luck. "You a reporter?"

That old suspicion. He remembered how hard he'd worked to prove himself around here, how exhausting it was. "Pastor," he said before he thought about it, before he allowed it even. He knew it was the thing to always throw them off, to loosen their tongues before they shut him down.

"Just old Mrs. Carson. That the one?"

"She'll do fine," he said.

So she told him how to go and he thanked her and took off slow and she stood there looking after until he rounded a bend.

He didn't have to knock, he told himself that. He wanted to see, like touching Boo Radley's house, hell he didn't know.

The house was barely visible from the road. It didn't set far back, but a thick line of scrub shielded it from the road. He pulled in the yard and two speckled dogs rose off the porch and came barking. He got out and told them no, and they backed off quick. This was a broken place, that's what he thought, the white asbestos siding, the high point of the white roof bowed, the shingles crumbled like stale bread, disintegrating into the rusted gutters. The dogs circled and sniffed and wanted close, and Edward stood by his car, figuring she studied him from the window, or someone did, cause that yellowed curtain moved. So he waited there. Then the door opened a crack and he walked up, and that one dog bumped the back of his leg and he said, no, again and they moved back, but they barked again, and this time she came out and told them to shut up and they did. She was older, maybe seventy or so. Her hair was snow white, and she was small and a thick sweater, bright pink. "What you want?" she said.

He swallowed. What the hell was he thinking. "I'm…from the church…Pastor Bill…."

"I told him I go to Glendale. Gone there since I was a girl."

"It's okay. I didn't come about that. I came to tell you who I am."

She smirked some. "I know who you are."

He was shocked. "How?"

"I seen it from my window. I will never forget that face." She folded her arms.

"I didn't know if you stayed around," he said.

"Where am I gonna go? My family…they're dead…except for my daughter…."

He nodded.

"What you come here for? What are you looking for?" she asked.

He stared openly now. "I have no idea," he said honestly.

She laughed some. "It ain't here…whatever it is."

"What happened to his mother? Your daughter…."

"She went back to Texas…years back. Got a good job there. He come up here…James…to do better is what we thought. He had trouble in Texas. The teachers there…that's where it started. He was a good boy before that, no trouble at all. Pretty quiet. But he got in trouble and she brought him here and I had him here since sixth grade. He went to Whitney school when it was open then they shipped him over to Danville. He rode the bus, but…."

They were quiet for a beat. "How…how are you doing?" Edward asked.

"Oh…for a spell…it was…folks round here know me for years so…my neighbors helped me. They know I ain't hurt nobody in my life. And what happened to James…well I don't know. Billy come over from the church there. He come over more than any. He did the funeral…well said words. I had him cremated."

Edward felt the first stab of love for Bill he'd been able to feel in some time. It made his eyes burn. He shouldn't have come here. "He's…," he cleared his throat, "…Billy's…."

"You best know it," she said, her chin lifting. "You know…last fall, that youth group came here and raked my leaves."

Edward shook his head.

"You ain't been back," she said.

"No."

"Well…some wanted to blame me, I guess. Course he had guns. There ain't a one round here wouldn't. He had his granpa's guns and he went shooting. And his mother…she would send him things…money. I told Billy…well how could I know? He seemed fine…just quiet. I told this over and over. I don't know what else to say. I don't know what you're looking for."

"I just…." He laughed a little. "I don't know either. Sorry to bother you…bring it all up."

"It ain't never down," she said back. "It don't go down. I just wonder…maybe his grandpa…I don't know. For a long time…I couldn't live here. Once the police stopped combing through it, they closed it up, the neighbors. I stayed up the road with Luetta. Billy would come. I only come back here a couple of months now…in the fall…and they raked my leaves…those kids. Luetta took sick and they put her in the nursing home."

Edward nodded. "That's tough. I'm…I'm sorry."

"Well…it went that way."

"I know. But…I hope you can find some peace."

"I can't," she said quick. "It don't go down." She turned then and went to her door. Edward turned away. A terrible feeling of incompleteness was on him.

"Ma'am," he said, dogs sniffing his pant-legs now, them not afraid anymore.

She turned to him, holding her door open.

"I talked to him sometimes…your grandson…while he was working at the church. One day he was sitting back in the lunchroom at a table there and he had quite a spread laid out, and I said, 'Somebody is well taken care of,' and he normally didn't say much, but that day I saw the first sign of a smile in him and he said, 'my gran.'"

She looked down, and then at Edward. "He wasn't…when he was younger…he wasn't a bad boy…I mean to say…he was a person…once he was."

Edward nodded. He went to his car. She was upset, and her movements were heavy as she went inside. He wished he could do something for her. But all he'd done was stir her pain. And his own, not that it mattered. He'd volunteered for it apparently.

He took a last look at the house, the sagging, crumbling house, and slowly backed out of the drive.

He barely remembered the ride from Carson's to Danville. Once he got there he drove to Bella's neighborhood. She lived in the old part of town. It wasn't all that big. He didn't look at names, just drove around until he landed on her street. He didn't look at addresses, just went slow until he spotted her car in a shallow driveway. Her house was plain, two-storied, kept neat. A "Go Falcons," sign was in the front window.

He smiled to think she was close. But part of him wanted to keep driving.

He sat there longer than he should. She opened her front-door and that snapped him out of it. He got out and walked up the uneven cobble-stones that dissected her yard. She pulled the door wide. He let his eyes drag from her brown shoes up her jean-clad legs and her round hips and small waist, a belt, a tucked white blouse, her hair in a ponytail, just clean and beautiful.

"What?" she said.

"What?" he said back.

"You were out there."

"Hi," he said, touching her cheek, shoving his hand in the pocket of his jacket.

She closed the door. It was bright and it smelled good. The entry way was open to the living room and Seth was sprawled on the couch playing a video game.

"Hey," Bella said to that sprawl of boy.

Seth sat up then, but didn't take his eyes off the screen.

"Hey," she said again, and Seth looked up briefly and said hi.

Edward looked at Bella, saw her displeasure. He went to sit beside Seth.

"Call of Duty?" he said, really surprised watching the soldier take out two enemies.

Seth barely acknowledged, his elbows shifting as he fought his silent war.

Bella walked to the flat screen and turned it off.

Seth let out a breath, but he didn't speak.

Bella put on a fake smile. "Seth, this is Mr. Cullen."

"Edward," Edward interjected.

Seth looked at him and nodded. He surrendered his hold on the control long enough to bump Edward's fist. "Pleased to meet you," Seth said.

He had Bella's eyes. He was small like her. He had her brown hair but he was freckled.

Seth looked to his mother and raised his brows. "Oh…sorry…about the," he held up the controller to the X-box. He set that on the coffee table.

Bella shifted her feet and kicked off her shoes. "You want…some coffee or tea?" she said to Edward.

"I'm fine," he said, sitting back on the couch, extending his arm along its back. "Fire up the game. Let's play."

Bella smirked at him and left the room.

"Need some help?" Edward called after. The house had a couple of walls removed so it was open to the kitchen if he looked over his shoulder. She was already at the counter working.

"No. Almost done," she said.

So he tore his eyes from her and turned back to Call of Duty. They played for a while. Seth was good, and Edward was rusty. This was a newer version than he'd played back in the day, more graphic than ever. He wondered why she allowed this. Especially after…he didn't know.

After they played a couple of rounds Bella called Seth to help set the table.

Edward followed along. "Can I help?" he asked again.

Seth laid out the plates and Bella carried the food to the table that set up a few feet behind the couch and across from the island that divided the cooking area from the eating area.

"No," she said. "You are our guest."

He remembered not to ogle her in front of her son. He'd been pretty spoiled when he'd had her to himself, letting himself look his fill, not that he could get enough when it came to her. He had such a different sense of her being in her environment. He'd always liked to visit the homes of their church people…when he'd been a pastor. Being in someone's home gave such a sense of who they were.

Like with Carson. He hadn't gone in, hadn't asked to carry his interruption that far, but standing in his yard, even driving on his road had given another few inches of perspective, a perspective he had not consciously known he'd wanted.

Seth kept looking at Edward. Edward stood there, leaning on the counter, near to Bella, but not too near. He figured he'd let Seth look all he wanted. He'd probably wondered about Edward time to time. Well, he owed him this at least. Plus, he'd been with his mother. And Bella was Seth's world. Maybe…no…but maybe…she was his, Edward's, too.

"How you been feeling?" Edward asked him.

Seth shrugged. "I'm okay." He was laying out silverware now, careful about getting it straight.

"How'd you meet Mom?" Seth asked, casually.

Edward straightened. He looked to Bella, and she looked back, whisking away to grab a bowl for the table. She wasn't going to help him?

"At…the beach," he answered. "We met there."

"Kind of odd," Seth said, pulling his chair and sitting hard.

Surely Bella had already answered this. Edward kept staring at him. Seth was at that gangly stage. His wrists were bony and his hands looked too large for his body. Edward swallowed, feeling something move in himself. This kid…this part of Bella's...heart…this life so reflective of his mother…his grandfather…this kid…was alive. This was the kid that fell…with the flag. This kid….

Edward turned away. He kept his eyes on the refrigerator, its bright busy mess attesting to their lives, pictures, recipes and bright colors and school papers and notes. Their lives.

James' grandmother. The silent crumbling house. That house and the rooms in the shadows and…he was a person…once. His grandmother had said that. But he had to die…so this kid could live. This kid…had lived.

"Edward?" Bella was saying. He looked up, and there she was…there she was.

He smiled and took her hand, pressed her hand.

"Let's eat," she said softly.

He followed her to the table, Seth looking at him and away, to Call of Duty frozen on the flat screen.

"You…you want to pray?" she asked Edward. Bella asked him that. They said a meal prayer. Seth….

Edward shook his head.

"I will," Seth said.

So they bowed, Bella and Seth, and Edward watched Seth, this kid, this great kid. "Thanks for this food, Amen," Seth said.

Edward laughed a little. It was such a typical teenager's prayer. He loved it. Best prayer he'd ever heard in his life.

Bella had tsked. Of course she wanted more. Maybe some long speech about the blessings of Edward being under their roof.

"You're smiling," Bella said. Her foot was against his. He felt her sock covered toes under his pant's leg creeping to pull down his sock.

"What are you doing," Seth said bending to look under the table. "Mom." He laughed to see what she was up to. "She always does that."

They all laughed.

Guess she wasn't going to tip-toe around the kid. Edward wondered again how she explained him.

"Where did you go?" Seth asked as he scattered salad on his plate. Then he handed the bowl to Edward. Edward had to remember to move his hands.

He was rusty around kids, forgot how they blurted things, and then this kid, these things.

Bella smiled at him and he eased some. "He means…what do you mean?" Bella asked Seth.

"Where'd you go after Grampa was killed?" Seth repeated, putting a large heap of spaghetti on his plate this time.

Edward was still holding the salad and Bella took it and served him. He looked from her to Seth and Bella held up a bottle of salad dressing and raised her brows. When he didn't respond she went ahead and put it on his lettuce.

Seth served Edward's spaghetti. It was such a friendly gesture Edward felt tears in his eyes.

He picked up his fork. His hand was shaking. He abandoned the utensil rubbed his hands on his thighs and went for the fork again.

"I…this looks good," he said to Bella.

She motioned he should eat.

He remembered Seth's question.

"Do you not talk about it or something?" Seth said before taking a huge bite of his pasta.

"Seth, for heaven sakes," Bella said.

Seth laughed as he tried to suck up the noodles and sauce slapped on his chin. He worked the napkin then.

"I left after," Edward said so suddenly Seth stopped wiping and looked at Bella.

"O-kay," he dragged out, watching Edward.

"Yeah…I was thinking about a change anyway…before it happened," Edward said.

"The shootings…or killings, take your pick," Seth said before chugging a big glass of milk.

Bella's foot was hooked around Edward's leg. He didn't want her to let go.

"You're very open about it," Edward said.

"Yeah. Well...why wouldn't I be?" Seth said. "Aren't you open about it? You killed him."

Bella's foot jerked against Edward's leg. He thought she'd withdraw.

"We're just open," she said to Edward. "Borderline rude," she said to Seth.

"It's not our fault. Why should we…." Seth said, too flippantly. He surely wasn't this casual. Edward could hear the anger. "Do I have to finish this?" Seth said, meaning his food.

"Yes," she answered. "Unless…well you've been sick."

Seth got up so fast he jarred the table. Bella said his name and he apologized to Edward.

"It's okay dude," Edward said. "But hang on a minute. You asked how I met your mom."

Seth lowered. "At the beach," he said.

"Yeah. I didn't know her before that."

"So it was like…coincidence? Bull…," he breathed.

"I don't know what your mom said," Edward said, glancing at Bella.

"I said I met you there and I didn't know you before," Bella said.

"That's true," Edward agreed.

"So…why'd you bring her home?"

"She was worried about you and I thought it would be faster. And…I wasn't ready to say good-bye. I happen to like your mom." Damn. It. Well, he did like her. That didn't even cover it. He wasn't going to be intimidated by this kid. That wouldn't help anybody.

"So why'd you leave…after. It's like…you didn't even care," Seth said. His eyes were so open…and brown…and like hers.

He'd answered this. He thought he had.

"After the shootings? I needed to make a change…after."

"Yeah but it's like," Seth waved his hand. "Doesn't matter."

Bella was flushed a deep red, biting her lip.

"I had to…I had to think about it. Everything that happened," Edward said.

"What about us? Did you even think about us?" Seth said, a little more of the anger leeching out.

"Yes," Edward said. "All the time."

"Didn't feel like it. You just took off. Every time we had to go to something…even after the funerals…I couldn't see Grampa's. I was in the hospital…every time. I thought you believed in God. You were a minister."

"I did…I do…believe in God."

"And Jesus and all that…is it just bullshit with you?" Seth.

"No. But…I had never…."

"I thought you were supposed to put others first or some shit…." Seth yelled.

"I had never killed someone before," Edward yelled over him.

Bella had rebuked Seth, said his name, so everyone had yelled, and it was there and Edward fell back on his chair, and his hands weren't shaking now, but inside…he was shaken.

"That was it?" Seth said, standing.

"Yeah," Edward said.

He went in the living room then.

"You hardly ate," Bella said.

"Not hungry," Seth said, dropping on to the couch and picking up the controls, setting the game back in motion.

"Turn it down," Bella said. And so he did.

Bella had apology in her eyes, but Edward didn't need it. He took another bite of food.

"This is good," he said.

She mouthed, 'I'm sorry.'

Edward shook his head. There was nothing to be sorry for.

It was quiet with Seth muting the game.

Edward pointed his fork at the screen and looked at Bella.

She shrugged. "Power," she said, laughing some.

Edward shook his head. What?

They finished eating pretty much in silence. After dinner he helped her clear the table. Then he stood by while she loaded the dishwasher. Seth stayed immersed in his game until Bella suggested he show Edward his room. Was she trying to get rid of him?

Seth shut down the game then got up like a robot and walked past them. Edward raised his brows at Bella, then smirked as he followed Seth upstairs. The kid had a heavy tread.

The first room must be Bella's. He could see the bluish bedspread. He was curious but he followed Seth. The boy went into the room at the end of the hall and threw himself onto the bed where he picked up a comic and started to page.

Edward stepped in. It was a nice room, typical for a kid Seth's age. "Nice pad," he said. He went to the shelf of trophies and started to look.

"I don't play anymore," Seth said.

"Baseball?" Edward asked.

"Anything."

"Why not?"

"Mom's afraid…well I had to take the year off."

"What about Scouts?"

"Nope," he said, holding the comic so Edward couldn't see his face.

"Youth group?"

Seth sighed tiredly. "Sometimes."

"What else?"

He crinkled the comic on his chest, "You trying to like…care or something? You don't have to."

"Good to know," he said, moving to the books now. There was a shelf of them. "Read all of these?"

He said he didn't know. Edward reached for his Ipod, but Seth shot off his bed and grabbed it.

"Sorry," Edward said.

"You ain't like what I thought," Seth said opening his nightstand drawer and dropping it in.

"Oh yeah?" Edward.

"What was it like when you killed him?" Seth folded his arms.

Edward folded his arms, too. He looked at Seth for a minute, wondering how to answer.

"It was bad. I hope you never…."

"I'm going in Special Forces. Then the police academy," Seth interrupted.

"Okay," Edward said.

"I want to kill bad guys." He'd rattled this off, and now the stare.

"Sounds like a plan," Edward.

"It is," Seth said, picking up the comic and flopping back on the bed.

Bella called up the stairs that desert was ready. Edward could smell a cake, but he had no appetite. This kid…. He started to walk to Seth's door.

"You never said…," Seth said, still holding the comic in front of his face.

"What?"

Seth lowered the comic. "You never said what it was like."

"I was trying to stop him. I was just trying to stop him, you know?"

Seth sat up. "I'm glad you killed him. Only…I wish I could have done it."

"No you don't. You don't want that."

"Yes I do."

"I know you're mad. You should be. It's okay to be mad. What he did…it's the worst. No one can say any different."

"I hate him. I hate his filthy guts."

"I know that. But you can't…."

"I hate his whole family. Mom says I can't and the counselor and the preacher and all. I just let it go by. I will never…ever stop hating him." Fire was coming out of Seth's eyes. He seemed as mad at Edward as everyone else on his long list.

They stared at one another.

"Go on and yell about it. Everyone else does." Seth said, throwing the book.

Edward walked to Seth's desk and pulled out the chair and sat. "I'm not going to tell you how to feel about it."

"I'll never forgive him. Do you? Do you forgive him? Cause if you do…fuck you."

Edward was looking at the floor, the white carpet. He nodded.

"Dalton said you were growling like a crazy man," Seth laughed.

Edward stayed quiet. He hadn't known that, didn't want to, didn't want to see himself as he'd been then…killing.

"There's nothing funny," Edward said. Now he was getting mad.

"It's pretty funny to think he shit himself. He did."

"You going to be an asshole now?" Edward said.

"Fuck you," Seth said.

"There's nothing to laugh at," Edward repeated.

"I think it's pretty funny," Seth sneered.

"You don't think it's funny at all. Taking a life is never funny. You asked me what it was like…it was sad, man. The saddest thing I ever had to do. I've been damn sad about it."

"Why? You think you should of let him go on killing us?"

"No. What he did…to your grampa…to you boys…to his family…and what I had to do to him. It's nothing but sad."

"I'm sick of hearing it." Seth sat on the side of his bed, holding his stomach. "Get my mom. I don't feel good."

"What's wrong?"

"Mom," Seth yelled, holding his stomach and rocking.

Bella was immediately there. Edward knew she had to be right outside the door. She was quickly next to Seth. "Seth, look at me," she said, untangling his arms. "Look at me. It's alright. You're alright. We're safe."

"I hate him," he yelled.

"Stop it," Bella rebuked.

"I hate James."

"I know. But you have to calm down, Seth. You have to calm down. Think of Grampa. You know he would want you to calm down," Bella soothed.

Edward waited. Bella held Seth, and at first he sat rigid, looking at the floor. He'd started to cry, but he kept his face down like he didn't want them to see. It was some minutes before he leaned toward Bella and she rocked him a little while she held him.

"Alright now?" she said finally.

"Yeah, sorry," Seth whispered.

"It's alright, sweetheart," Bella whispered.

She moved away then and stood. "Come on downstairs," she said to Edward, and he could see how tired she was, how tired they both were.

"I'll be right down," he said.

She was slow to leave the room, but Edward stood there. "You alright now?" he said to Seth.

"Yeah," that one said, sniffing.

"I'm sorry I let you down…leaving after it happened…with James. I didn't realize how it would be for you guys. I thought…I'd done what I could. I didn't want to think…there was more."

Seth shrugged. "It's okay," he practically whispered.

"It's not," Edward said. "But…I can't change it. Whatever the answer is…don't hate. If you hate…you change."

"I already told you. I hate him."

Edward could see the agitation rebuilding.

"Hate what he did. Hate it so much you go in the opposite direction. But hate people, hate James, and you become like him."

"I'm nothing like him," Seth yelled.

"Don't hate. You're alive. Your grampa would tell you…don't hate. Be a good man. Make him proud."

"I will," Seth said intensely. "That's why I'm going to be a police."

"I thought you wanted to kill bad guys," Edward smiled.

"I do. Like you did. To save people."

Edward nodded. "A protector. That's cool. A hero. Hate evil, hate cruelty…but don't hate people. You're alive. You made it. That's it. Nothing else is as big as dying. And you didn't die. Now it's all a gift, buddy. Take care of people, man. Take care of your mother. You get crazy like that…it worries her."

"I don't mean to. They're rages. I get them sometimes."

"Okay. I'll bet they've taught you some skills though, huh?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. Breathing and stuff. Good thoughts. Praying. But sometimes…I don't want to. I'm mad."

"Yeah. No one is telling you not to be mad. Just be mad at the right things. James Carson is gone. He's in God's hands now and God is a good judge. But evil…it's not gone, man. It's still here. You can't become the new evil, the new threat. You have to stand against it now."

"I am."

"Good. Use your skills. And you think about what I said…about hate."

He looked at Edward, then he nodded deep, and something kicked up in Edward and he sat heavy in the chair. "Hey kid…you're alive," he tried to talk, but he was gone then and he sobbed, at first with no tears, his body pulling in on himself, then releasing and a sound he could barely swallow.

He felt Seth's hand on his back, patting his back. "It's okay Mr. Edward," Seth whispered.

Edward sobbed. "I'm so sorry…."

"It's okay," Seth said, and the hands…too big…patted Edward's shoulder.

"Seth," Edward gasped through his tears, "you're alive…it's all that matters…you're alive. Nothing else is that big. Nothing else…matters. Don't hate. You're alive."

"It helps if you breathe," Seth said as he continued to pat with his too big hands.


	16. Chapter 16

Leaping 16

After dinner with Bella and Seth, they had tried to persuade him to throw down on the couch.

He had been adamant, much as it ruined him to spend any time away from Bella, even Seth, him too. He wasn't there to put a question on Bella's reputation. He could take care of himself. In this at least.

Edward drove around, meant to get a room, but sat in the motel parking lot in Danville until he fell asleep. When he awoke it was dead night. He was stiff with a crook in his neck cause his head had fallen to the side. But he knew what to do, right away, he drove to the interstate. Under cover of night, he was going to Sydney.

He had no plan. This was all bigger than him and at last he was in touch with it. He was twenty-two minutes on the highway and he got off at the federal prison there and backtracked to town.

It had not changed. Sydney wasn't more than a square. Houses sprawled beyond it, but except for the churches dotted here there and all over, there wasn't a thing going on in Sydney.

He wove into the neighborhood some. There was Billy's house. Shit, there was his old house. Yeah, cars in front, it had some love, but hey, they'd torn down his fence and he'd worked like a dog on that. Well shit.

But he kept going, chattering in his mind. He got to the schools and in back of them was the street the church sat on. He pulled in the lot there and parked so he could stare at the building. Well, there it was, the battleground, and not just because of what happened with James, but he'd battled there on many fronts, many times.

It was dumb to come here. Did he need to? What was he looking for? He was looking…for his life. He'd dropped it suddenly…and he was looking in the corners now, under all the beds, picking up the pieces…holding them in his hands. That's all.

He fell asleep again. When he awoke it was because the town was waking up, parents driving kids to school, the yellow buses grinding past, the secretary pulling in to the lot, around the back, first one in the building. He tucked his hands into his armpits. It was cold. He was cold.

Billy's van, that behemoth, fixed for a handicap. Edward knew he'd be in his chair, and he was. Edward figured he was in it most of the time now. That had been coming.

Billy wouldn't know this car. He'd figure Edward for an indigent sleeping on the lot, thrown out of the house, shipwrecked from another town, suicidal…. No one knew what a pastor might find when he came to work in the morning cause like it or not, a church, even a dark and silent one, was a lighthouse for the broken, but Billy knew how it was.

Edward wondered what he looked like…like hell is what. Bill was lenient about the dress code, but he asked Edward not to wear jeans on Sunday, just that, but now…he looked like a tramp. Well his hair did for sure.

Billy rolled toward him. "Oh…from the grave I see," he said, big grin, but pain…too.

Edward nodded. There was something there…deep. Edward swallowed it down this easy emotion, this lack of control.

He couldn't get a word out, but he went quick to Bill and got pulled into a hug that took him over and moved Bill's chair back some, but that one, so strong in his arms, he was squeezing the life out of Edward and the last scrap of his self-control.

Edward heaved in Bill's arms. Then he caught it, and it wasn't so much, the worst was what had just escaped, a near convulsion.

Bill slapped his back two or three times, but mostly he held on.

His hands slid to Edward's shoulders and he gripped there and moved Edward back to look in his face, the laser look that would tell him everything.

"Oh," Bill said. "Come on in."

Edward stepped around back of the chair and took the handles. Billy didn't need a push, not at all, but it was a courtesy he extended if a man needed to step away for a minute and do a job and find his dignity.

So Billy chattered now, about the grounds and gardens and Edward pretended to hear, but he looked mostly at that cowboy hat Billy wore and the man underneath it in this berg, this hamburger town, and he felt such a rush of gratitude it about buckled him.

They got in and that smell hit Edward, cleaner and paper from the flapping bulletin boards telling about anything with a pulse for Jesus in these surrounding towns, and that other smell of prayer and despair and hope. Edward's stomach clenched.

Bill turned the chair to face him. "We did it over…the sanctuary. New carpet…new pews. You won't hardly know it."

Edward closed his eyes and groaned. How did this man always know how to hit the target.

"Listen to me," he said. "I know you ain't here to beg for your old job."

Edward shook his head.

"Frankly…I don't want you. You need to be out there now you got your stripes."

"I…."

"Now hold on. Whatever you got to say…I don't need to hear. I ain't never said that to a man trying to tell me his heart, but I'm saying it now to you. You know what you're here for. My job was to get you in the door. I got some calls to make. We gonna say our good-byes here?"

Edward nodded. "I…thank you."

"You'll be alright," he said. "You know where to go for the answers. I ain't got a thing more to tell you cause you know what I'd say before I got it out."

Edward laughed. He did.

"Let me know when you get where you're going. I don't mean all that meandering you're doing while you fart around, I mean…let me know when you enter in."

"I will," Edward said.

Billy rolled to him and slapped his arm. "You're alright," he said.

Edward nodded.

"Best get to it before the quilters get here."

Yeah. He did not want to run into that group.

Billy went in the office and Edward shoved his hands in his pockets and continued down the hall. He got to the foyer, and the sound of the gurney wheels on those gray tiles that day, as they took out the wounded…the dead.

But there were other things…so many…funerals, and weddings, and Christmas trees lit up here, and folks huddled and voices and laughing. There was so much.

He pushed in the wooden doors that opened to the center aisle. Brides walked here, and the wisemen, the choir, the weeping, the smiling. He stood where he'd done it, the new carpet under his feet, the new pews with the padded seats.

It wasn't here. Memories…sure…but like he knew, so many kinds.

It wasn't here. It was in him. It was his. It was a part of his history…it was a part…just a part…and it was his now…to let heal…to let scar…so he could use it…so he could give it…so he could speak from it…so he could say…don't hate…with power…with authority.

It gave him the right. He'd been tested. And James Carson had not won.

Because the living had the final word. And he…was…alive, and the pieces weren't in his hands, they were in his heart.

He knew it for Seth. Now he knew it…for himself.


	17. Chapter 17

Leaping 17

She was it. Bella Black was the one. It's like most of the static was gone. He couldn't foretell the future, he wasn't being ridiculous, but what he'd found with her, felt with her…it had never been this way before…so clear he could…lick it.

She was part of the why. He wasn't trying to add to it…the reason he'd suffered, but she was one of the gifts that came out of it.

He could wait two months, or two years, but heart of hearts he knew this wasn't going to change. He loved her. She had entered his life…she had already become…the best thing.

He knew this driving back to Bella's house. He pulled in front, and took the path quickly, and knocked on her door. She opened as though waiting on the other side. She hadn't been up long, her eyes were still swollen, and he knew she was tired, deeply so, but he was looking to make sure Seth wasn't on the couch and he pushed her back and closed the door behind him.

"Are you alright?" she said, her hands attaching to his arms.

"Yes. For the first…." He gripped her waist.

"Did you sleep?" She looked over him, his rumpled clothes.

"I did some. In my car…I know…."

"You look…."

"Listen, Bella…it's clear to me…like…everything is…lit."

She laughed a little.

He had her in his arms, wrapped tight and she reciprocated and he held her that way and when Seth didn't show he lifted her face and kissed her lips soft, then more urgently, and she seemed as needy to do this as he was.

He broke apart and breathing, his hand on her face, holding her chin…"Bella," he said, "I'm in love with you."

She swallowed and a little smile at the corner of her mouth.

"Is that okay?" he said, a laugh…like a giggle and if he had the time he'd feel ashamed of such a sound, but he didn't really care…at all.

She laughed too. "You're asking permission? I never asked yours."

He touched her cheek, her bottom lip. She said it tickled and they laughed again. "I'm glad you didn't. I might still be alone."

"You couldn't get rid of me that easily. I was never afraid of what I felt," she said.

He nodded. He had been…afraid of what she felt…afraid of his feelings for her.

"Let's bring Seth back to the beach with us."

"Are you crazy? He has school, Edward."

That's when Seth showed up, on the top stair. "Yeah…the beach!"

It was well past lunchtime when they were finally on the road. It hadn't been easy to reach consensus and actually do this. Bella was fleshed out here at home where she was a mother. Of course Edward had only known her as an apparition from the sea while at the beach. The embodiment of his physical and emotional needs.

But here in Danville she was dimensional. And so practical. He was fascinated by this side too, her relationship with Seth, protective, indulgent, but not as indulgent as he would have thought with them being on their own and with Seth coming so close to death. She was on the phone with his doctor, then with his school.

"You're a lot of trouble," Edward told Seth.

"I can be," Seth said back with a raised brow.

He had 'confident' down. He wanted the beach, but appeared to be handing out a warning with it.

Edward told him there were a lot of rest stops on the trip and he wasn't above forgetting to wait for Seth should he prove to be annoying.

Seth seemed surprised for a minute, but Edward saw him smile before he turned away and asked his mother where his water shoes were.

Edward tried to help speed it along, but he more got in the way than anything. He put the perishables in the cooler, as instructed. He put the last load of clothes in the dryer and folded the load already in there. He even made Seth's bed. He ended up going in to Danville to get his oil changed and filled the car with gas.

But eventually they did get on the road, and all that morning, and now as they traveled, Edward's thoughts about Bella ran unimpeded.

She had watched over their interactions, his and Seth's the night before, but she had stayed away, just far enough. She couldn't know how much that meant to him. She was insightful and generous. She was wise. She had quality, as far as he was concerned, an admirable willingness to trust, to not interfere to make herself feel better.

What he realized…she came for him…knew he needed to meet Seth. Yet her way was so open…so vulnerable and unswerving. She took all the risk. When she loved, she held nothing back, nothing. Genuine love. He kept looking at her, was she this brilliant, orchestrating everything? She had no idea what he felt…how it ran…so deep, worked on him, on any and every obstruction, blasting them to bits now, anything, everything, there was no reason, not one reason to resist.

And all of this hit him while she told him a funny story. Seth was talking, too. Bella was turned to look over the seat. "Yes," they were saying, egging one another on, the story so rehearsed, letting Edward in on it now, knowing how to tell it, who said what parts better.

Edward heard them from far away. She'd turned her body some, opened herself so she was the connecting point for himself and her son, so they made a type of circle now…a beginning….

There were songs and bad fast food that tasted so good going down, and serious answers to careful questions, and silly jokes, and 'pea-punch yellow' until Bella didn't want to play anymore, and falling asleep, first the mother, then the son and Edward kept driving, and looking, at her, all the time, but in the rearview, at him, at the boy, the son.

It was the most amazing discovery, this feeling…the paths in him jerking straight. His little finger was against her leg, and the warmth, just there, like Michelangelo's Sistine, God sending life into Adam through a near touch, Adam receiving…the spark. Edward was romanticizing, of course, but even this small contact felt alive, felt fantastic.

For a split second the awful thought…he was falling…a leap, a drop. No, no fear now. He was head over heels in love with Bella. Seth was already his. Yes, he knew that. It had chosen him…fatherhood. He was just responding. They…were his charges. His causes. He could be so hurt now…more hurt than ever before cause if this kept up…it would be one of those loves…it already was, dammit, one of those poems…songs…one of those sonnets…he was there.

Now he could get ground-down to nothing. He loved. And he always knew that when it happened…if…he would be ridiculous with his devotion…he always knew this about himself…look how he'd followed God…that surrender…in him still though he didn't want to worry over it now…but still…he didn't know half way, he didn't know what it meant to be a percentage less than one hundred and fifty out of one hundred. When he loved…it was complete immersion. And so he'd held off…and dreaded the day…and now, yes, he was drunk with it, drunk with love.

Bella had driven the final miles to the beach-house as Edward had not been able to keep his eyes open once they crossed the final state line. She had slept so he was free to pass out in the backseat. Seth was plugged into his earphones and his phone, his face slightly lit by the screen, the holy spirit of technology his generation warmed themselves by. Edward wrapped one arm around himself and leaned his head on his crumpled jacket and closed his eyes. He reached his other hand between the driver's seat and the door and her hip, his thumb sandwiched beneath, and her hand worming to touch the back of his, oh God, this. It was as soothing as such a touch might be. Lover to lover. God all the pining for one another this world knew and had known and would know, it kept the place spinning, it literally did, he thought as he drifted off.

So it was dark when he roused to life. Seth was already out so the car was lit. Edward smiled at Bella and they unloaded then and he had the keys to the house and Seth had gone to the dark water and Bella called after, he was supposed to be helping, but he'd dumped his stuff on the porch at least. As soon as Edward was in the house and smelled the air there, he wanted Bella in the worst way, had just awoken that way, as if, once all of his restraint had fallen asleep, the lust took over. It would be difficult to keep his hands off her. They'd have to be clear with Seth that they loved each other. Well, after a couple of days maybe, they could talk to him about it, so they could show affection at least. But the kid had to know. He'd seen them in one another's arms that morning so Bella had probably already talked to him about them, that it was serious. Yeah it was a fast moving train, but it was real and it was here…the circle…the family thing.

In the morning Edward was roused from sleep by a banging. He sat up, and the room swam a little. His head felt clogged and he'd been deep in his dream, what was it, he'd been talking to James Carson, he was at a fair of sorts and Carson was working a booth and he'd gone up to it and Carson was selling cupcakes and all he had left was…it didn't matter now.

"Stop that pounding," he called out cause someone was hitting something and they shouldn't.

As soon as his head cleared enough he got up and instead of going to the window to look at the ocean, he went in the hall, the smell of coffee there and he followed it down the stairs. The pounding came from on the porch outside, and Edward didn't see Bella in the kitchen, and the coffee, he remembered Bella had set the pot before they'd all turned in,

Someone was on the porch. He opened the door and it was Jasper striking a plastic bucket with a piece of driftwood. Alice stood at the bottom of the stairs holding a beach bag and a suitcase. Jasper had more bags heaped in one of the chairs. His shirt was unbuttoned, his undershirt on display, even though it was downright brisk.

Well, Jasper knew how obnoxious it was to wake people this way, but they both broke out laughing as Jasper tossed the wood over the rail and Alice said, "Finally!"

Edward guessed they'd tried the more traditional methods of entering.

"Where's your key?" Edward asked.

"In your pocket, bro," Jasper said digging into the pile of belongings. Edward gathered up what was left and they went in.

"You look good," Alice said. "Are we…good?"

Well last they'd spoken….

"Yeah. Sorry about my latest asshole explosion."

She laughed and hit his arm, then she did a sweep of the house and said, "I'm home."

This place…once a year growing up…then a gap of time after their mom died…then sporadic. But Alice had come here frequently the last couple of years. Edward only recently.

"So…," Edward said helping himself to coffee while Alice suddenly grabbed him in a hug from behind.

"How have you been? Ignoring my texts and calls, but other than that…," she went on.

Jasper brought several bags of groceries to the counter.

Apparently they were staying.

"I've been good," Edward sighed. Jasper officially shook Edward's hand on his way to the fridge.

"Hear that babe, he's been good," Alice said proudly.

"Yeah…he's grownin' up," Jasper said, backside showing beyond the fridge door as he bent to unload oranges into the bin.

"I take it you're moving in?" Edward said over the cup.

Alice went for one of the cups stacked in a rack on the counter. She reached behind Edward for the pot and poured some of Bella's brew.

"Just visiting…which you would know…." Alice let it die. That must have been what some of the texting was about.

Jasper was in line for coffee now.

Edward remembered Bella then, how they'd schemed together. He could be mad at Alice now…if things had gone badly. He should be anyway.

Alice seemed to know what he was thinking. She'd always been weird that way, not just with him, but especially with him.

Her eyes were sheepish, watching him as she sipped. "This is good," she said. "You didn't make it."

"No," he said, stern.

"Uht-oh," Jasper sang, having filled his cup.

How many times over the years had he heard Jasper say that, just like that, over something Alice had done.

"Yeah, the Uht-oh queen," Edward said.

Alice lowered her mug and smiled.

"That's why you're here," Edward said. "You couldn't stand it…not knowing."

She was going to deny it, but she ended up laughing.

"Actually…we had planned to come next week…after…."

After Bella would have gone home.

"But then…," Alice's eyes landed on Jasper and she widened her smile.

"You might need to sit down," Jasper said.

"Why?" Edward.

"So I don't spill your coffee all over you when I tell you you're going to be an uncle!" Alice pretty much shouted.

Edward quickly set his coffee down and prepared for her leap. She was also coffee free and already in the air. He caught her easily as she'd stopped growing at twelve. He held her then.

"That's great," he got out. "When?"

"May 4th."

Edward let go of her long enough to shake Jasper's hand. They were all laughing. "Good job, man," Edward said.

Jasper nodded. "Best job I ever had."

Alice lifted her head, and Jasper helped her get her feet back on the floor. That's when they saw Bella standing there, in sleep pants and a tank with a light robe over. Her hair was long and her hands clasped in front.

"Bella!" Alice said loudly. Then she snapped out of her shock and crossed the floor quickly once again. She grabbed Bella in a hug and that one looked surprised, but couldn't help grinning and laughing too as her hands awkwardly patted Alice.

"Oh Bella it's so good to finally meet you," Alice said stepping back and holding Bella's hands.

"You too," Bella said softly.

Jasper followed the tail of Alice's comet like always and graciously shook Bella's hand. They exchanged pleasantries and Alice asked if she'd heard their good news and Bella apologized for over-hearing, and they both insisted they were glad she heard and Bella gave hearty congratulations, looking over Alice's shoulder this time to smile at Edward.

Seth was up now, coming slowly down the stairs. Bella said, "This is Seth."

Alice went right to him, on the stairs, and shook his hand. Seth smiled, like he was trying to believe this woman accosting him so early in the morning, well it was ten, but they'd all been sleeping late.

Jasper waved from the bottom of the stairs, always a softer breeze than Alice's tempest, except in matters of protecting Alice, or business, or games, he was a competitive asshole in games sometimes. He was also aggressive in traffic.

In no time Jasper and Bella were cooking breakfast, and Alice was busy unpacking, putting herself and Jasper into the downstairs bedroom. She had already been upstairs, flitting about in search of fresh sheets, but Edward knew she was checking out the sleeping arrangements. He knew her so well, knew it was her first thought when she saw the lovely Bella materialize. Then Seth had thrown her, and she had to know how it was, if Edward and Bella had the audacity to shack right up with Seth around, or if they were apart. Alice wouldn't have counted on Seth. He was not in the original plan, but it was unlikely she would know about their run home. Or maybe she did. Maybe Bella was in constant communication with her. How did he know?

He didn't.

Seth was quickly dressed and out to look at the water. He'd asked Bella's permission and Bella told him not to go far. Edward dressed for a run, and followed Seth out, but not before catching Bella's eye and shooting her a kiss because no one was looking.

He hoped that would give her something to think about, and he was smiling when he caught up to Seth. "Can you jog?"

He didn't know, with the chest injury, the leg injury.

"I'm not much of a runner," Seth said, but he started to jog a little. He was slow, and he gave up quick so they walked. They were headed toward the cabins where Bella stayed, where he knew she still had some stuff which she planned to clean out today. She had the place for three weeks and there were three days left.

So Seth was pretty surprised when Edward smacked his arm with the back of his hand and said, "Hey that's where your mom was staying. Let's see if we can get her stuff."

But it was locked and Edward figured Bella had the key, so they looked in the windows. All Edward could think about was the sex they'd had in that little kitchen. Man, they hadn't held back. It had been unbelievable. He nearly groaned out loud thinking about her.

But he was with Seth, and he needed to get a grip and he laughed a little.

"So what…Alice knows Mom…and she stayed here…and you said you guys just met…." Seth said.

"Yeah. Does it matter?" Edward said taking a big step off the porch.

"I wanted to come with her," he said.

"Yeah, she said that," Edward said.

"So…you're like…you and my mom…."

"You asked her this, right?" Edward said.

"Yeah."

Edward nodded like that explained it.

"It's like I said, I really like her…a lot. That okay?"

Seth shrugged but he was quiet. Thoughtful.

They were back along the water. Breakfast was probably ready and Edward was starving.

"She tell you about my ex-step-father?"

"Yeah. She said…he travels."

"Yeah. He was…well at first I was happy for her. He seemed…good. But then…I don't even see him anymore."

"Yeah. That's tough. His loss though…right?"

Seth shrugged again.

"I'm…I'm not him," Edward said. "Just so you know."

Seth didn't say anything. It remained to be seen and they both knew it.

They got caught up looking out at the water again. "You ever…like the happiest things make you sad?" Seth said.

Edward thought this over. He didn't want to make this about the incident if it wasn't. He didn't want to be known by Seth as the one you couldn't talk to because he'd always make everything about 'it.'

"You mean like…feeling depressed or something?"

Seth had his hands on his hips. "No…more like…I don't know. It's stupid."

"Tell me."

"More like…if you're already sad…you're just more sad…but if you feel happy…you go to the same place. Sad."

"Are you talking about the guys again? About the thing?"

"The shootings. Yes," Seth said impatiently.

"Like a survivor's guilt thing?" Edward said.

"Mom said that's probably it, but I don't know. I'm not sorry I'm here. I'm not guilty. But I'm sad for them. And when I'm happy about something…I can't help but think…like the ocean. They'll never see it. I'm not sure they had. Lots of kids at school haven't. Not everyone has the money to take trips."

Edward had his hands shoved deep in his pockets. His shoulders were hunched because he'd dressed to run and not stand still. "It just sucks," Edward said. "Truth is…it just sucks."

Seth looked at him and smiled. "Yeah."

"I think the ocean is one of those places…it's so forceful and enormous…it's life. Hey…it's got its sad stories too, right?"

"The Titanic," Seth said and they laughed.

"Exactly," Edward said. "But still…." They stood there watching the waves build and hurry to crash and ebb near their feet. "It's just a lot of things. Life is a lot of things. But it's still great…you know?"

Seth looked out at the water. "Why didn't God stop it?"

"Yeah. That's the million dollar question…always is. You remember your Easter story?"

"Like him dying on the cross and…resurrection?"

"Yeah. That was God…stopping it."

"But…."

"You haven't heard anything sad before…what Carson did to us? You think we're the only ones who've ever suffered? Really?"

"Well…no."

"But it was alright before it happened to you and me. We weren't having any problems with God then."

"I don't know."

"Seth. It sucked. That kind of…unfairness…injustice…violence…it sucks. It will never feel good. It will never be good. But it ain't everything." Edward swept his hand at the water. "Take a look. Life is still happening. It will still blow your mind. You and your mom…you guys blow my mind."

Seth laughed at that. "Why would we blow your mind?"

"I uh…I feel like I got a family. I know it's quick and I don't want to weird you out or anything, but…I'm looking forward to the future."

They stood there for a few seconds more. Edward prayed to God he hadn't said too much.

"She's only been divorced, like, a month."

Edward snorted. Then he laughed. "I told you I know it's quick. But they were separated a long time, right?"

"Yeah," Seth said.

"I know you're not wanting your mom to be hurt. I plan to be good to her."

"Yeah. You said you're not him."

It was awkward now, but they were saying what needed to be said.

"How's it been with…the after with the guys' families…the ones who died?"

Seth shrugged again. "One of them…Jason…I don't see. They moved away. But Riley…he was a friend. His mom lets us go over…anytime. And he's got a little brother…and he's like…we play games and stuff."

"That's cool," Edward said.

And there they were, side by side, until Alice called them to breakfast.


	18. Chapter 18

Leaping 18

Their first breakfast in Grandfather's house felt festive, even when it was awkward, even when plates were full and Jasper and Alice and Bella were at the table and Edward and Seth were on the couch.

The only way to deal with his new family in front of his old one was to focus on Seth, at least until Edward could grow comfortable with that self-satisfied smirk Alice wore.

It still wasn't okay, in theory if nothing else, that Alice had manipulated his life. He wasn't so impossible she couldn't have spoken to him about Bella…invading his escape. Okay, he would have never, ever agreed to such a plan as meeting the daughter of Chief Swan and mother of Seth, on a lonely beach in the heart of winter, just the two of them. Never in a million years would that have been a-go. So…yeah…he got it. But he didn't have to love it.

But look at her now, and he almost couldn't stop looking at her…Bella Black. Yet every time his sister caught him looking at her…that smirk. Maddening.

Alice was explaining some of the history of the house, that it had been built by their grandfather and their aunt Esme and uncle Carlisle had refurbished it, practically rebuilt some of it to turn it into a seasonal vacation property. In peak season it went for over three grand a night.

Edward realized again how little he and Bella knew about one another's lives, how they had not even felt the need or hadn't been light-hearted enough to be able to be anywhere close to normal, it had been this desperate red-hot coupling, then this crazy wanting to be together, at least for him, then the brief time at her home and the rapid opening of all the black boxes from the unresolved things in his past, and the realization of love. And now this. They really were working their ways backwards.

What a slick, difficult path, a twisted trajectory, a carnival ride that went insanely fast then came to an abrupt halt only to take off in a frenzy again.

"Are you hearing me bro, are you listening?" Jasper was saying.

"I'm sorry," Edward said, realizing he'd been holding his fork, eggs at the ready while a million thoughts had besieged him.

"It's rented out for the whole season." Jasper meant the house. Real estate is what he did, they did, the uncle, the aunt, Jasper, Alice.

"That's great," Edward replied, but he only pretended to care. He was noticing Seth's leg, how he kept jiggling it so quickly the couch was vibrating.

"Hey buddy, slow down," Edward said to Seth.

Seth slowed it then.

"Aren't you going to eat your food?" Edward asked him.

"It's my medicine. It kills my appetite," he said.

"What medicine? From the virus?" Edward asked.

"No. The stuff for my nerves," he answered.

Edward looked at him, then at Bella. She was too far to know what he said, and she smiled weakly as Alice went on about her favorite vacation destinations.

"So you take it everyday…the stuff for the nerves?"

"Cymbalta…yeah," Seth said. "I had some trouble…sleeping…going out…then back at school."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Um…," he took a nibble of a strawberry. "Just…I'd have to leave…."

"Leave school?"

"Leave the room…I'd go to the nurse. But no one thought much…I'm kind of like this special case…just this kid…I don't know."

"A special case from the shootings?"

"Yeah. I'm not like them…I grew up there, but…." He set his full plate on the coffee table. "What are we going to do today?" And the leg was back.

"You're the boy who lived."

"The chosen one?" Seth shot back.

Edward grinned. He liked Seth's quick mind. That was in tact at least.

He flashed a look at Bella. She was pretending to listen to Alice, but he felt her attention on him and Seth, her eyes…too much hope.

"What…do you want to do? You're at the ocean, man. Don't tell me you're used to it. Danville is land-locked as it gets." There was nothing wrong with Edward's appetite. He wiped his plate with a heel of good bakery bread and popped it in his mouth.

The leg…that was fucked to move like that. He wanted to say to chill, but if the dude needed to release that kind of energy Edward didn't want to add to the burden.

"Did you sleep last night?" Edward asked.

The boy shrugged. "I don't know. Some at least."

"Why don't you sleep?"

"I don't know. Let's do something."

"We are doing something," Edward said. "We're eating."

"No…," Seth trailed off. He was up quick. He barely limped, but you could see it some when he first got going.

He went upstairs and Edward took his plate to the sink.

He rinsed off his dish and Bella was soon beside him. She stuck her plate under the water, her arm against his, her eyes searching his.

"Seth said he takes meds for his nerves," he said. He was bugged that Seth had gone upstairs, just left like that. Was it because he didn't get his way? Edward couldn't keep taking his emotional temperature. Seemed his mom already did that.

Bella reached to shut off the water. He could tell she didn't wish to make eye contact, letting her hair fall forward. Just a little thing like that.

"Isn't he young to take that nerve shit?"

She shrugged, wiping her hands on a towel. "He's alive, Edward. He's pretty healthy for a boy who had a bullet bounce around in his chest and another rip through his leg. So he gets to be young now. Whatever it takes…you know?"

Edward looked behind him at Jasper and Alice. They were both pretending to read different sections of the newspaper.

"I was just trying to figure things out," he said. He didn't know why it upset him…the medicine…well he did. He wasn't on nerve pills himself and if anyone had reason to be…and the kid was so young and too thin…too shaky. But then, the kid couldn't slam back a drink…or a bottle. Edward realized his hypocrisy. He'd done the old self-medicating thing enough, especially last year, especially then when it was fresh and he was going no-where.

"He sees a psychologist?"

"He has. And a psychiatrist," she said. "For the prescription."

"And what do they say?"

"Post traumatic stress, generalized anxiety, depression."

"He's in grief," Edward said and he felt defensive, like he wanted to take on the whole mental health community. It didn't make sense…his reaction.

"I know that Edward…grandfather, friends, self, youth, innocence, peace, well-being…yes…grief." She'd said this with feeling, but she wasn't spitting it at him.

"He's not eating."

"The medicine…."

"How much medication is he on?"

"He's been on so many things. Currently? Four things. One of them is for mood…the Cymbalta. And an occasional sleeping aid. You don't know how difficult it's been."

"A big dose?"

She shrugged.

They had to stop speaking when Seth came back down the stairs. And his unexplainable frustration lay in the sink like garbage and he wished he could shove it in the disposal and grind it to nothing.

Jasper asked Seth if he wanted to go to the store with him to pick up some fresh fish for dinner. Seth said a polite no thank you and plopped onto the couch. He had his Ipad and was pretty engrossed.

"Do you want to go to the cabin with me, Seth?" Bella said.

"No. I've already been." He did not look up.

"I'll go with you," Edward said, his eyes on Seth, thinking if he offered to go, Seth would too.

But Seth didn't offer to go anywhere. He kept playing his game.

So Edward and Bella put on jackets and took off for the cabin. The talk about Seth had put them in a weird place. He felt like he'd been apart from her for a week and he hadn't been apart from her much at all. He took her hand. He needed to touch her.

"Hey," he said yanking a bit on her fingers. "I need to know. I'm just getting it figured out. Peace?"

"I just…well don't judge me. I feel like you are, like you disapprove…of my parenting."

A few more steps. "I didn't realize is all. I was thrown. I'm on your side. Seth's too."

"What is this thing we're doing…so awkward?" she said waving her free hand. "I hate this."

He looked over his shoulder at the house. He half expected Seth to have changed his mind and come running after them. Seeing he wasn't, Edward scooped Bella in his arms and swung her around. He got a squeal out of her at least. That made him feel better.

He moved in for a kiss and she made the effort to reciprocate. He set her on her feet then. "Hey…."

"Edward…I've let you in. But I told you…it's not easy. It's just…worth the risk. You…are worth the risk."

He nodded. Most of the awkward was gone then as they continued to walk to the cabin. When they got there, she unlocked the door and he followed her in. It held a bit of staleness. Food left on the counter. "I thought I'd be back," she said. They worked in silence to clean the kitchen. He took out the trash. When he came back in she was stacking her chalked sketches.

The shapes were elementary, but he liked the colors. She had wanted to capture those. Sunrise, here, the grays and pinks. She had sold her share of a florist's shop after the accident. But color, she loved to study that.

She led him into the small bedroom there and she went to the bed and lay down. She lifted her hand and he got close, took her hand in his and she pulled him down.

"I'd hate to think I had no more self-control," he said, and he laughed some, and she didn't, she remained sober.

"I've needed to be with you like this," she said, already lifting her hips to kick off the linen pants and her underwear.

He did the same, bared his lower half and she led, bringing him to her, pulling him by the hips as she guided him in.

He stared into her eyes, trying to see what it was she felt with such intensity she could not smile or even wait, what was this?

He was going to go slow, let her set the pace, but it caught up to him then, her open warmth, the way it felt to be joined by flesh, and he gasped and laughed, embarrassed to hook into it then, how it was, how serious, how real and un-named and how needy he was, not cool, not in control, just reduced, ready to beg, beg her not to stop gripping him, between her legs and between her hands, to never stop wanting him like this, to never stop knowing with such clarity, such certainty that they had to be together.

Recognition. She recognized him. She was it for him, but it was the same for her. Yes she was struggling under his judgment and to let him in, and her fear of marriage, but she wasn't drawing back, she wasn't hiding.

"Mom?" It was Seth.

Edward leapt off of her and went right to the door, which he shut. Seth was in the kitchen and the bedroom was in a short hall off of that. She got up and put her clothes on, but not nearly as frantically as Edward was putting on his.

"It's alright," she said to him softly, kissing him, one hand on the doorknob.

She went out, closing Edward in the room.

"What is it?" Edward heard her say.

"I didn't see you," Seth said.

"I was in the back…with Edward. You said you weren't coming."

"I changed my mind," he said.

"We'll be along. You can take those sacks for me."

Edward quickly righted his clothes and ran his hands through his hair. He ripped the sheets off the bed and went in the kitchen holding those. He was in time to see Seth angrily grab the sacks his mother had pointed out before he stormed out the door.

"He's embarrassed," Bella said.

"He knows we were…he's not stupid," Edward said. He sighed and leaned on the counter. "We can't do this, sneak fucks like two high school kids."

"It was a bad idea. I just…I needed you. I need you."

He set the sheets on the table and went to her and put his arms around her. "I love you," he said. "I'm thirty-two years old. There was a day I was actively looking for you. Now? You came to me. And I don't want to let you go."

"What are you saying?"

"I know it freaks you out. I know you were burned. But…you've got a kid and he doesn't need some lover-boy…."

"So you mean…?"

"Marriage. We don't have to rush in, we don't have to be officially engaged today or tomorrow, but moving that way should be our intention."

"Is it your intention, Edward?"

"Yes. Is it yours, Miss Black?"

"I…want you."

"That's a yes?"

"I…am scared."

"You're just excited. It feels almost the same. Damn close."

Edward and Bella came back to the house with their arms loaded. They put the foodstuffs in the kitchen, but Bella's clothes and personal things they took to her bedroom.

Seth was holed up in his room. Edward knocked softly as the door was partially open. Seth said to come in. He was perched on his bed drawing.

"Hey," Edward said. "Want to go the water?"

"No," Seth said, not taking his eyes off the sketch pad.

"I was thinking it would be good for you and me to have a talk."

"So talk."

"I mean about me and your mom."

"No thanks."

"Look, Seth…."

"I don't want to hear about it. Jeez." He stretched out on his side, back to Edward. It reminded him of the day they'd met. Like two days ago.

"Yeah, well…whatever. C'mon, it's decent enough outside you don't want to be cooped up in here. We're going out on the pier."

"Go."

"We'll work up an appetite and eat at one of the restaurants on the beach."

Edward doubted food would be much of a draw for Seth, but he stood there until Seth slammed his sketch pad down, the martyr. He'd been drawing some demonic looking war lord. Edward wasn't in the mood to feign fascination. This kid spent too much time in the dark side of his head.

Jasper was on a fresh scallop run, and Alice wanted to work a bit. She asked that they call when they reached a restaurant for lunch and she and Jasper would drive and meet them.

So Bella and Edward and Seth set out. Seth was out front, quiet, hands in pockets, head down. Edward and Bella walked behind. Bella was finding shells, not collecting, just appreciating. Seth started to look at her finds, keeping his hands buried in his hoodie. Soon he walked with them, beside Bella. Edward didn't have much to say. His newfound understanding with Bella had lifted the awkwardness that pervaded the morning. Now that he'd declared his intentions, and she'd reciprocated, his self-respect was in-tact. He meant them good.

Finally they stood on the end of the pier and watched the waves churn into the dun-colored sky-line. They went into the town then, as it began the far side of the pier, where the beach soon ended. There were some shops, open in spite of the off-season. They wandered in and out. Seth seemed to appreciate shopping, more than Edward would have thought, but then he was just getting to know him.

He was interested in the junk in a gift shop. When he wanted something he didn't ask permission, but had the means to buy it for himself. He bought a T-shirt and a CD. Then he bought candy.

He had no trouble at all eating the candy. They sat in an abandoned outdoor theatre. Beyond the stage they were close to the water. Edward had bought himself and Bella a coffee to balance the cold wind blowing from the direction of the water.

"You missing school?" Edward asked Seth.

"No," he said vehemently, before he tipped a stick of some gross sugary candy in to his mouth.

"Not a fan, right?" Edward said.

"I hate school," Seth said. "I said that already."

"You didn't say you hated it," Edward said.

"I wish I never had to go back there," he added.

"Seth," Bella said tiredly.

"It's the truth. I hate Danville."

"You don't mean that," Bella said.

"I do too. I hate it without Grandpa." Seth stood up and threw the frozen drink he'd bought himself. It splashed red on the bottom of the cement stage they sat before.

Some of the drink splashed onto Edward's pant legs. "Fuck," Edward said under his breath, but Seth heard him.

"Fuck you," he yelled. "She's my mother."

Edward stood up. "Hey…she may be your mother, but it's not cool to act like a baby. Go pick up that cup."

Had he thought it over he might not have said things just that way. He wasn't Seth's father and had no right to act like it, but he was used to kids and keeping order and it just came back to him before he thought it out.

Bella stood, too. "Calm down," she said to Seth. "Sit down and calm down."

Seth ignored Bella and he stalked off down the broad avenue that bordered the shops.

"I'm sorry about that," Bella said, sitting again, her eyes on Seth's retreat.

"About him? I always heard you can't apologize for what someone else does."

"It's his rage."

"His rage? Really?"

"Yes really. I told you he has PTSD."

"Okay. Whatever. He can't just be an asshole sometimes? He has to have a psychological excuse?"

"I'm not going to get pinned to the wall by you. I'm a parent, Edward. Don't second guess everything I do."

He thought he heard wrong. He couldn't believe it. There was a fiery look in her eyes though. Well, he had called Seth a baby. And an asshole. So be it. He wasn't taking that back.

"You think we should go after him? Or I will. You stay here," she said.

"Bella," he took her wrist, "since you asked…I've got to say, he seems intelligent. You think he's going to run away?"

"No," she said. "But…he can react. He does that."

"He already threw his shit. If he throws something else, like a rock or some old lady's dog…then he'll get in trouble with security. Maybe that's what he needs…a reality check."

"Yeah…I'm his parent Edward. He's had plenty of reality."

Edward put his hands up in an attitude of surrender. "Sorry to cross the line. I guess the next time he tells me to get fucked I'll remember he's had too much reality."

"Are you going to keep being sarcastic?" She got up then and marched after her son. Her son was no longer visible, but she went in the general direction.

Edward went after her. "Bella, wait."

She stopped and turned. "Right now? You have shown me something small in yourself…something cruel. I'm going to find my son…and then I'm going to think about my return ticket home. Right now? I don't want to look at you."

She stalked off then…just like Seth had. And Edward did the same…in the opposite direction.


	19. Chapter 19

Leaping 19

The day Seth ran away, all the way back to the beach house, without telling anyone where he was going, without answering his cell phone, was the longest day in the history of Edward's world.

He'd taken off in his own direction, then gotten frustrated at his own frustration, if such a thing were possible and he could attest that it was. Then he'd gone after Bella, balls in his hands, and asked her to forgive him, and he wasn't entirely sure for what, but it no longer mattered. She had held onto his arm for a moment, her head down, and nodded silently. Then he helped her look for Seth. When Seth wasn't in any of the shops they called the beach house, but Alice had not seen him.

Turns out Alice had not seen him because Seth had returned to the house and sneaked in to his room like a Ninja. Upon returning home and discovering this, Edward wisely kept his mouth shut, but it was between them, and she pretty well kept her hair in the way most of the night, only looking at him on occasion and then just long enough to escape back into the curtain.

Jasper and Alice pretended not to notice the atmosphere, and proceeded to cook and lay out a great dinner of fresh scallops, macaroni and cheese for Seth and a great apple and cashew salad. They also rented a couple of movies which afforded everyone something to stare at in the ever-more stifling confines of the house. Then a storm came in and knocked out the power and Bella retreated to bed but not before Edward heard her tell Seth he could sleep in her room if the storm upset him. The kid was twelve years old.

Edward was sitting on the porch with Jasper, sharing a front row seat to the storm, the ocean's roil, and a beer. Jasper was a great companion for someone feeling like shit. They'd shared many such sessions of easy silence over the years, particularly since the fucking incident.

So it was blow wind, blow, and lo and behold Seth came out on the porch. "What are you doing," he asked them.

"Have a seat," Jasper said, tipping his bottle toward the row of lounge chairs just waiting for a warm backside.

Seth plopped down in one of them. "It looks like the end times," he said.

Edward realized Seth was afraid.

"Nah," he said, taking a sip of his beer. "No trumpets."

Jasper snickered, but it could barely be heard. He loved to call Edward 'the warped theologian.'

Next Edward knew Seth moved to the empty chair right beside him. There was lightning over the ocean. Edward's arms suddenly ached to hold Bella. Why had they let anything come between them? Even this crap with Seth. It was no big deal, so why had they let it become one?

"What if they're blasting and we can't hear them," Seth said.

"Hear what?" Edward asked taking another long drink.

"The trumpets," Seth said sternly.

"No door open in the sky, no man on a white horse," Jasper went on.

"Is that what it will be like? When the world ends?" Seth's voice grew more intense.

"Maybe," Edward answered. Was Seth serious about this?

"You think it's true? You think there's hell?"

"Yes," Edward answered. "Seth…enjoy the show, man. We're safe here."

"Like…when will he end it?" Seth said.

"Not for a long time," Edward said back. "It's not our worry. We're at the beach. You should have tried those scallops." He smiled at Seth, but that one only swallowed and looked back at the black angry water and the rips of lightning.

"What if you were out there right now? What if you were on a little boat?" Seth asked.

"Better than no boat," Jasper said lazily. "Jaws, man."

Edward looked sharply at his brother in law. Jasper didn't realize how serious this kid was. Jaws? Not now.

"I'm never going in the ocean," Seth announced.

"Yes you are," Jasper said.

"No I'm not," Seth got louder.

"We're going out there tomorrow," Jasper continued.

"We are?" Edward said. First he'd heard about it.

"I've got a call in to Dave. If he gets back to me early enough we're going fishing."

"Not me," Seth repeated.

"What?" Jasper said. "You can't miss a chance to fish on the ocean, man."

"He doesn't have to go," Edward said. "But…I hope you will." He looked straight at Seth, feeling the manipulation in his blood, the family DNA.

"Why? You don't need me along," Seth said.

"It'd be cool. Just us guys. Bringing home the bacon."

"If pigs could swim," Jasper sang.

Seth smiled. "How long are you out there?"

"Four hours," Jasper said.

"What if I get sick out there?" Seth.

Oh, he'd actually put himself in the boat now. Jasper smiled at Edward.

"You hurl over the side and the ocean gets a little bigger," Jasper said. Edward knew he'd had a few.

"Yeah, no big deal out there," Edward said.

"Feed the gulls," Jasper again.

Seth laughed a little. "Gross."

They were quiet for a while, the lights flickering as the storm moved off, then coming on for real sending bright patches onto the porch.

"I don't know," Seth said, bird-dogging on it.

"Well," Edward said casually, "the world don't end…one way or another. You decide. No biggie."

"Nothing like the feel of a big fish on the line," Jasper sighed.

"Oh yeah," Edward said, and they clinked bottles.

"Can I have a beer?" Seth asked.

They snickered some, but were non-committal. Hell no he couldn't have one.

In bed that night Edward stared at the ceiling, hands cradling his head. He thought of Bella and Seth, how it must have been for her, the long days and nights at the hospital, leaving only to attend her dad's funeral.

A husband who was nothing. He thought of her…alone, how scared she must have been. The bond those two had, he wondered…she had come for him. She picked him. It was a privilege…and a damn big job…to be allowed here…and possibly resented at the same time. What fuckery.

But he was willing. That was the thing. He had that commitment thing. James Carson had committed. But so had he. And his kind of commitment went on forever. His kind of commitment…endured.

When she came to him, and he knew she would, wrong as it was, right as it felt, he rolled toward her and pulled her close. There were only so many words…that would help. But this, laying together, his arms around her, her holding on, it was the thing that might get them through.

He kissed the side of her face and tasted the salty damp. She'd been crying and came to him...like Seth might to her. They were three bowling pins in a basket, being shaken by life and wobbling in to one another. He'd have to allow it. He'd have to remind himself to let it be, let it shake out.

"I love you," he whispered, and that brought new, quiet tears. He reached behind him for a Kleenex from the box on the nightstand, and he handed her this, and she whispered thank you.

And that was all for now. That was enough.


	20. Chapter 20

Leaping 20

"Give me some time to blow the man down," Jasper sang.

Seth had to laugh, even as he refused to fish, but sat pouting on the white leather bench behind the boat's small cabin.

"I'm sick," he said when Edward looked at him.

Edward nodded, a look of sympathy. He was sorry the kid was motion sick, but he'd get over it if he kept sipping that Ginger ale. The Dramamine had kicked in by now. They'd all taken some before they went out. It was helping him and he was a little hung over. He suspected more than anything Seth didn't like the lack of control.

Dave had offered to let Seth drive on the way out, but Seth had quickly shaken his head and kept his skinny jacket clad arms folded and his butt cheeks, no doubt, in a tight clench. Anyway they were anchored now and their lines were in. Edward and Jasper were keeping an eye on Seth's pole. Jasper had had a bite, but he lost it quickly. Now they were waiting.

Dave was a good guy and he knew his stuff and to top it all he'd brought them out here on his day off. They threw him a lot of business in return, well the real estate people did, not Edward. And he was having a hard time with Dave's colorful speech, as if a young kid wasn't sitting there big-earing every word. It's not like Seth had anywhere else to go.

Speaking of, said kid was dry-heaving over the side again.

"Whoa bro. Getting those sea legs," Jasper said, interrupting Dave's story about a 'broad who was spilling out of the top of her suit' last season and how he'd seen more ass crack….

"Hey Dave," Edward found himself saying, he pointed at Seth.

"Oh, he's okay. This boat has been thrown up on more times…."

"No," Edward interrupted, "watch the stories, man."

"PG-13," Jasper said in his sing-song. He slapped Dave's hand but Edward could see Dave thought he was a bitch. And he was. He wanted PG. Possibly G. Yeah, G. Just to be safe. Why the hell not…heck not?

Bella had sneaked out of his room that morning before the sun was up. They had marinated in one another for several hours. Not sex. Not sex…less either. But it had been some kind of thing…bonding. He hated that word, but yeah, a gluing process might just be what it was. A silent acknowledgement….

"Seth, you've got something buddy," Jasper called out.

"I don't care," Seth moaned, his hands having vanished into his armpits just in case they expected him to reach out and touch his fishing pole.

"Oh shit," Edward yelled, straddling Seth's pole, his hands poised to grab it. It had gone still, but then it looped over the side.

Jasper yelled, and Edward had it in his hands. "Mother-fucker," he yelled, feeling like the old man in the sea. This thing was huge.

Seth was next to him now. "Holy shit," he yelled seeing what it took for Edward to keep ahold of the pole.

For a fleeting second Edward felt some regret over the language, but the next big yank on the pole almost sent him slamming into the boat's side so all guilt went the hell out of his head.

"Don't let go," Seth yelled.

Edward, trying to keep silent, shook his head. The pull on his line was unbelievable.

"Moby and his big Dick," Jasper yelled.

"For sure," Dave said, and Edward admired the man could get it up when he must have seen this a thousand times.

At the end of the day Seth got his picture taken with his big-ass triggerfish. Edward had Dave take measurements so he could order a replica to be made for Seth's wall. On the way home Jasper suggested they turn the replica in to a singing fish like Billy Bass who was popular years back. It could open a whole new industry for Dave. So they joked about that and it was pretty silly.

Once home they set the cooler on the porch and Jasper went for the fish-cleaning tools he kept in the garage. He and Seth set up a fish cleaning station on a patch of grass that grew in the sandy yard. They had the big fish on a card table and Jasper was sharpening his fillet knife. Bella and Alice were not there, much to Edward and Seth's disappointment. But Edward had just cracked a Pepsi open when he heard them pull up in front of the house. Pretty soon the lights came on in the kitchen, and the women came out on the porch. Seth yelled, "Mom," and proceeded to tell her about the fish. Bella and Alice seemed pretty impressed, well Bella was promising sex with the look she gave Edward. That's how he took it. And my God. She and Alice had gone to a spa. There were no words to describe the level of awe he felt. It rivaled his baptism. She was perfect.

Shiny hair, skin like china, lips…eyes…ears…body. He could smell her sweetness over the ocean. That took something. Over the fish. She was a human flower. She was sumptuous.

And he was pretty much her hero. Now this he could get used to.

Seth was speaking rapid-fire, telling Bella all about how Edward had held the big fish, and he'd taken over cause Edward had bruised his groin.

Bella's eyebrows shot way up.

"I said it felt like it," Edward corrected.

"My," Bella said.

"He'll be fine," Alice interjected. She wanted to know how they were cooking the fat fillets Jasper was cutting from the carcass.

"The grill," Jasper said, studying his cuts like a surgeon, barely able to spare them a glance so intent was he on his operation.

Bella and Alice went in the house to start the side-dishes, and Edward followed her and that scent right in.

"Wow," he said standing close to her as she washed her hands.

His eyes darted to Alice who was doing that smirk at him. Smirk away big sis.

"You got some sun," Bella said. Yeah she was admiring him, too. "Thanks for…he's…just thanks."

Edward took a big drink of his beer…to buy time. He was pretty choked up. He wondered if everything would ever just be normal and not such a big deal. But then…it was a big deal. She was…a big deal.

"What's that Seth said about Moby's dick?" Alice asked.

"Um…that was…is the name of his fish," Edward said softly. It was nearly on the plague that was coming with the cast, but he took charge and said they could just put "Moby."

Bella gave him a look, but she was trying not to laugh.

Sounds like Mr. Jasper," Alice said.

Edward smiled. "Hey, I'm not a rat." After all, his choice was Mother Fucker. Sometimes the name finds the fish.

It was a better night than the one before, the best meal, the best company at the meal.

Seth ate Moby. He got in trouble for saying, "I ate dick."

Jasper laughed so hard he fell off his chair. Edward could only smile…in terror. Bella didn't think it was funny at all. She whispered, "I can't believe you would say something like that."

Alice just shook her head and said, "If they give me a shower we need books on parenting."

After that they played Monopoly. Jasper and his games. Bella emerged as a competitor. Edward was surprised. She was pretty ruthless. It made Edward care more, pay more attention. At one point he was winning. Then he landed on Bella's green properties and the slow bleeding of his fortune began. It ended up being Jasper and Bella. Edward fell asleep on the couch watching Seth play some game on his Ipad.

He was awakened in the most perfect way, Bella's lips on his own. She was pulling back whispering hello, but the kiss was on his mouth like nectar.

"Hey," he said back, not quick enough to catch her. She was on her way to bed. He got up and noticed everyone was long gone and the lights were out. He followed Bella as was becoming his very good habit.

She went directly in to his room. As he passed Seth's door he noticed the lights were off.

He was in last, shutting the door behind him. She stood, much like another night, other nights, disrobing. She said she wasn't this woman but he wanted to fall to his knees in gratitude that she apparently was.

Oh, there was that skin, that body, those breasts, that dip in at the waist, that swell out at the hips, and those legs, oh my god, he literally sucked spit.

He was bare when he reached her, on the bed. It's like his clothes evaporated, he really had no realization he was stripping. Peer pressure, he thought. He was a follower.

So there they were on his bed at last, not a thing between them but good will.

My god he wanted to get all serious, right away, and it poured out of him, "You're the most beautiful thing…say you'll marry me. You're mine. Say you are."

Things like that, just a steady rant of things he couldn't believe, but he meant.

She laughed and kissed him. She laughed at his heart. But he wasn't mad. Just…whatever, as long as she kept kissing him that way, moving on him, oh my god.

That scent was all over him, he was drunk with it, with her, and thank god he had showered, well all three of the males had been banished to the showers before they were allowed at the table as the women had insisted they reeked of fish. Jasper had tried to persuade Alice they'd brought the ocean in and it was natural and beautiful, but aluminum foil had held dinner and they'd all cleaned up.

Good thing. He didn't want anything in the way of this coconut, tropical scent he'd forever associate with Bella and sex.

"Bella," he said, and she told him he had to be quiet before someone heard them.

That was potentially embarrassing, his wailing…like a whale, but he didn't care he…was…crazed.

That night he reached a new level of letting go. She had blown him up. Pulverized him. In the morning he'd have to scrape himself off the ceiling and find pieces of himself in all the corners.

"That was…holy," he told her.


	21. Chapter 21

Leaping 21

The ball smashed into the wall, and Edward did a long-armed reach that sent it arrowing back to crash again. He loved that hollow sound.

It was Seth's turn, and he swung his racket and missed. "Damn."

"Okay, you know what? We need to curb the language."

"You're a great one to talk," Seth said.

Edward caught the ball and bounced it a few times. "I said we, Seth."

He passed the ball to Seth and tucked his racket under his arm.

"We going?" Seth asked.

Edward didn't answer. The fact that he was walking off the court seemed self-explanatory.

Seth followed, bouncing the ball, sometimes using his hand, sometimes the racket. He was so engrossed he walked into a couple of men going in to use their abandoned court. "Oh," Seth said holding the ball and looking up. "Excuse me."

The kid was well-mannered when he wanted to be.

Since he seemed to be on a roll he caught up to Edward and said, "I told everyone I was sorry about the eating dick thing."

"Yeah…that was great," Edward said flatly. "But…I've let lose too. Too many times. You know I was a minister, right?"

"Well…yeah. Duh. I was at your church…. I've never known a minister with a dirty mouth. Until you, I mean."

They were in the locker room now. Edward was sitting on a bench untying his shoes.

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry to burst your bubble about that, but I got out of the habit of cursing in seminary. I made a real effort to get more creative…and less offensive. But I've just…gotten so fucking sloppy. So…what do you say we help each other?"

"I don't know," Seth said wiping his sweaty face with one of the towels the club provided. "I don't really think I have a problem."

Edward smirked. "Well, I do."

"Like you'll give me a dollar everytime you curse? That would be cool."

"Not a dollar." Not a fucking dollar.

"Fifty cents then? I'll be rich," Seth said joyfully as he changed his shirt.

Edward saw them then, the scars. He stood up and lightly touched Seth's skinny bi-cep. "Hey bud…damn."

He'd already seen the leg, the entrance and the exit, clean-through. But this was something else. An entrance, and then the scars from surgery…the story like brail on Seth's pale skin.

Edward felt his throat grow stiff and he swallowed and the wound in his heart cracked open a little and bled.

Seth pulled away, and got his bag out of his locker. He quickly pulled a clean shirt over his head.

"You know what? Fuck it," Edward said, also pulling his bag.

Seth laughed. "That didn't last long."

"There're worse things…," Edward said, pulling his own soaked shirt over his head.

Seth eyed Edward's chest. "You lift weights or something?"

"No," Edward said, also ripping a clean shirt over his head. "Not for a long time."

"Not since…but it's a good thing. You were strong…what you did to Carson."

"Oh…that was…adrenaline…," rage, fear, horror, reaction.

"They said you wouldn't stop…."

"Yeah. We've talked about it, right?"

"Yeah but…I'm glad you did it."

Edward threw the last of his gear into his bag. "Yeah. It was better than the alternative…right?"

"You wish he would have lived?"

"I…couldn't take that chance. But…you ever read about Moses?"

"The baby in the basket…some."

"Yeah. He was this guy…he knew he needed to do something…to help his people…so one day he sees one of the Israelites being beaten…and he kills the guy…this guard who is doing the beating. But…people turn on him…and he's afraid…and it blows up in his face…you know? So he goes to the dessert for like, forty years, and he's just this shepherd. And one day this bush lights up and God speaks to him out of this fire and…Moses was kind of right all along. He was supposed to do something. It just didn't turn out like he thought. But…there was more for him to do and God was like…handing it to him. God was…calling him out of hiding."

Seth was listening. Edward really loved this kid. He really did.

"So…what?" Seth said.

"So…I kind of feel like him. I've just been thinking about it."

"You're like…on the desert?"

"Yeah. Kind of."

"You're like…waiting for a fire?"

"I didn't know I was. I was just…hiding. And…you and your mom…."

"I'm confused."

"You and your mom are like…the light. You just kind of lit up right there…where I was hiding. I don't know." Edward scratched the back of his head.

"Isn't it like schizophrenia?"

"Oh…the fucking internet," Edward said picking up his bag. "C'mon."

At the house Alice and Bella were dancing. Edward and Seth came home to loud Motown, which Alice loved. They looked happy. Edward leaned on the counter to watch. They had their arms around each other. Alice was teaching Bella how to dance like she was at a sock-hop. Bella was graceful, just naturally elegant. He wanted his arms around her. It was just that way.

Jasper came out of the back bedroom then. He was grinning at his wife and he asked to cut in on Bella. Bella stood back and turned to Seth. He laughed and said no, but he moved awkwardly with her for a moment before pulling away and running to the couch. Edward walked toward her then. Even that, his approach was bringing up her flush. He laughed, and took her hand and put his arm around her waist and pulled her in, leaving about six respectable inches with Seth looking on. She was smiling at him and they moved some and hey, he was no slouch. He dipped her back, then Jasper dipped Alice and Alice groaned, and they were laughing, even Seth.

That night she sat on the porch, scrunched in a chair with Edward. She wasn't on his lap, as Jasper held Alice, with a blanket over, but she was scrunched beside him. They'd all gone to a movie and Seth was in the house, and it was dark and the adults took refuge here, all mellow.

"Edward, I was thinking Seth and me need to fly out Monday. That way he can still get in some schoolwork when he gets home."

They all had to be out of the house soon because the season started in a couple of weeks and Mrs. Cope was anxious to get it ready.

Here it was. "Why can't I drive you home? I want…shit."

Did that sound pathetic? She felt the same, right?

"I already have my return ticket. I'll exchange it and get another for Seth."

"Do you want me to come?"

Light spilled next to them from the windows. He could see the deep shine in her eyes but she had her lips puckered.

"Edward…I agreed. Remember? We're moving toward a future. You said…."

"Yes. I just…you're talking about separating…even for a couple of days…."

"I know, but we have to be…it's okay."

"Yeah." He'd been dreading this. "Of course."

"It's been so great to be with you…to be here. I don't want to leave. I'm trying to be…."

"…an adult?" he said, laughing sadly.

"Yeah. That."

He ended up kissing her. They were soft singular kisses, a break between each, but if you put them together they were about a two minute necking session.

"Get a room," Jasper drawled and Alice laughed. They knew how much Edward hated that phrase. He hated it.

"Ignore them," he whispered, his lips against Bella's hair, "I do."

"Oh…," Alice laughed.

"I don't even have a job," Edward blurted. If they were going to eavesdrop he wasn't going to fight it.

"Real estate," Jasper sang.

"He's too good," Alice said. "Too…holy."

Wow. Funny she should say that when it brought his and Bella's love making to the front of his mind. He'd called it that.

The family loved to tease Edward about being too good for the business. He'd always known they were proud of his profession. They'd been thrown when he went to less skilled labor, labor he didn't feel called to. That worried them, he knew that. He also knew they'd been relieved he was doing something, at least. Until he wasn't. Mostly he wasn't. He lived off of savings. Money he'd inherited, and a little money from the sale of his house. Very little as property values in Sydney had tanked and he'd tended to make enough improvements to eat up the modest equity.

Bella had sold her half of a Florist shop but there had been debt from the shop and lawyer fees from the divorce. She had Charlie's life insurance pay-out, but there had been hospital bills from Seth. She had not sued the church, or rather their insurance company, to recover those expenses. She had used the largest chunk of Charlie's money. His house had been modest, and the sixty grand it brought is what she was living on now. But it was past time to start earning again. She needed to put the remainder of that money away for Seth's education.

She was telling this to Edward. Alice and Jasper had gone to bed so they could speak privately.

She was buying the house she lived in in Danville, and property values there were slightly better than in Sydney as Danville had enough population for a Wal-Mart and all the usual suspects surrounding it. It was also closer to the city.

"Are you saying you would…relocate?" Edward said.

"Oh, Edward," she sighed.

"Seth says he hates it," he said, half-kidding, half-wondering if it was true.

"You feel that free?"

He thought about it. "Yeah. I cut ties. I had that option."

She had not.

"For me, home was the one thing I could count on," she said.

He got that.

"But…I would…oh my God I am scaring myself, but I would be open…," she turned quickly, her body facing him, her hand on his cheek holding him so he couldn't move, not that he wanted to, "I'm scared. If you…are not the real deal…I will cut out your liver…and kidneys."

She smashed her lips against his.

He laughed but he was in to the kiss, then he broke it off. "Bella…I saw his scars."

"He let you? He's pretty self-conscious."

"At the club…we changed after the game…Bella…."

"My boy," she whispered, then her voice caught like a trawl net skimming the ocean's depth and catching itself on a wreck.

He held her then, for a long time, he felt it in her…where she'd been…the fear of where he would take her. He felt that net pull tight, so tight. He felt that net break free.


	22. Chapter 22

Leaping 22

Fifteen year old Seth Swan bit his nails while his step-dad Edward read his essay. He had written this, but he knew it came from them all, and he said this, not only his family but from everyone involved in the shootings, involved in any way. They had all taught him something, and he was ready to talk about it as this was to be read in the ceremony that would recognize him as an Eagle Scout.

Bella and Edward had cleaned up a few of the sentences or made suggestions, but in their opinion it belonged to Seth. It came from him as he drew his own conclusions

"It's really good," Edward said as he laid the paper on the table and rubbed his carpenter's hand over it.

Edward was trying not to cry. He did that now…since Seth had been sick that winter and they hadn't been able to pinpoint the reason—he cried easily. Seth had lost weight, and that was something he didn't need. He was ten pounds under weight as it was. So yeah, Edward cried easy now. He wasn't sad, his life had never been so precious, but he loved, Seth, Bella, their baby girl Jane…he loved them with that abandon…well he said he'd be like this…ridiculous.

Here was what he'd just finished reading, they were Seth's words:

_I wore a uniform. Buttons and badges and patches my mom had sewn in place. A Boy Scout of America. When I put it on, that uniform, I felt good. Proud. It made me hopeful about the future. I wanted to be a policeman. Like my grandpa. And when I wore that uniform, I was on my way to all the other uniforms I'd wear…in the army…and on the force._

_Mom handwashed my shirt so the colors wouldn't bleed, so they'd stay bright. When I wore it, when I put that shirt on, it told about me, who I was, what I did, what I valued. I couldn't imagine how it would be ripped apart first by the bullet meant to take my life and second by the hands of those who would save my life. I couldn't imagine that a small patch of that shirt would be forced into my chest and removed two hours later by a surgeon at Glenmore Hospital._

_I held the American flag. I was taught to never let the flag touch the floor. It is the symbol of my country. The land of the free and the home of the brave. I thought I was free. I knew I was brave. But five minutes after I lifted the flag and carried it down the aisle it not only fell to the floor, but I fell on top of it and my blood soaked into the red, white and blue._

_I walked with my friends, the other Scouts, Troop Twenty-Five. We'd been together since Cub Scouts, except for Jason. He had just moved here from Arizona. He was so glad we had space in our troop. It was his second time to attend one of our meetings. Well it wasn't really a meeting. It was a practice. It was a special event. Jason would be wounded, like me, and after he recovered…his family would move away._

_We were in a church. In the olden times if you were in trouble with the law, you could run in to a church and seek sanctuary. No one could touch you there. We were safe in that church, in our troop, with our flag, in our shirts, with our badges._

_But even more….there was my grandpa. He'd driven me over to Sydney. He'd taken off work early to do that. He was trying to spend more time with me. My first dad didn't want involved. My second dad didn't get involved. But Grandpa…was involved._

_He wore his uniform too. His badge. He sat in the pew near the door just like on Sunday, so he could get out quick, he said._

_But he never got out of that church on that day. He died in the back pew._

_On television….people get shot all the time, and they bounce back up and they fight. In video games they don't even have to fall down. But when you're really shot, it's not like that. I was shot in my chest and my leg. I wasn't aware of the leg wound. I never felt it. But the chest…it was like I'd been hit as hard as you could imagine with a hammer. Thor's hammer. And fire. I couldn't move. I couldn't stand. I couldn't fight. I could barely breathe._

_But as I lay there…on the flag…in my shirt…I felt something move past. I saw a man. He would become my third dad…my real dad…Edward Cullen. My dad tackled the shooter to the floor. My dad overcame the shooter…and we were saved. And I knew right away…God had moved._

_That was the last thing I knew before I lost consciousness. My dad._

_There's more. People died that day. The shooter, my best friend Riley and another friend Colin. My Grandpa.. Two of us got wounded. Six of us were alright if you don't count the bad dreams and the nervous feelings that come out of nowhere, if you don't count that…and we don't. We're glad to be alive._

_I'm writing this to those who can't imagine what it would be like to want to open fire on innocent people. I'm writing to let you know it can happen, it does happen, it happened to me…to us. And like my dad says, the living get the final word, and our word is this…peace. Be kind to one another._

_But I'm writing this to those who might be tempted to do something like our shooter did, who might think this is a way to be remembered, this is a way to be powerful, this is a way to get even._

_Life is real. People hurt and bleed and die. Families get torn apart. It's not just what you do to your victims in the moment of violence, in the attack and destruction…it's what you continue to do long after you're gone. People live with your choices…live with your cruelty. _

_And you? You become frozen in time as a villain, as a devil. You're not allowed to mature. You're not allowed to become better. Your legacy is pain and grief and destruction of everything good. You've written your story. It's not what you're here to do. It's not what you were created for._

_Kids think they can't change the world, that they don't matter. But that's not true. After I was shot, two of the scouts from Troop Twenty-Five put their bandanas over my wounds and applied pressure until the ambulances started to arrive. I learned about this later. I couldn't help myself, but I was helped, and the flag I carried, the shirt _I_ wore, and the church I laid in like a sacrifice…as surely as those things had meant so much to me...now I knew. Now my blood had mixed with those things, those symbols, and they came to life…hands…so many hands…helping me…telling me to be brave…telling me to hang on…hands working and working to make me well…I believe…I know that my country, my church, my friends, my grandfather, my caregivers, my mom, my dad…they are real. The shooter taught me that. His anger was like a stampede that brought me to the land of suffering, but it was everything I'd been given by the free and the brave that pulled me back. So to everyone reading, to everyone listening, protect what's precious. Don't take it for granted. Be kind. But be ready. _

_My dad told me this: There's only so much bad guys can take from you. Throw a boulder in the river and the river…will quake…the river will rise…the river will flood its banks. And the river is bigger than any rock…thrown anytime…by a punk, or a bully or a madman. The river is you and me and all the good things we know are true. When love is challenged…it gets bigger…just like that river. Love always wins. It speaks with a louder voice…it flows from a truer place….it's the only thing we're promised will endure._

"You've got a message," Edward told him.

Seth nodded. He looked at Edward, his eyes so like Bella's. "And I believe it."

_He was just a little child. Weren't they all?_

But his mind, there was nothing wrong with that. The essay…he could talk about it now…they all could…and did…and didn't. Just to have the freedom…to be objective. It wasn't a light thing.


	23. Chapter 23

Thank you to all who read, especially those who have taken the time to review, and particularly those who have stayed with me through all of my work and encouraged me, thank you, bless you, love you.

Leaping 23

Epilogue

From the time of becoming an Eagle Scout and reading his essay, Seth began to get well. Bella couldn't explain it, but she and Edward watched it happen. Edward said he knew. A healed Spirit brings health to the body. Inside, Seth came together.

And outside Seth's natural good looks had finally kicked in. He claimed he would never be as handsome as Edward and loved to keep a running tab on how many women, according to him, tried to hit on his step-father. But what Seth was…whether he knew it or not, was radiant. He was tall and strong. He was compelling and soulish and wiser than any other eighteen year old Bella could compare him to.

He had found his message at fifteen. Then his cause, found him. The local press had sent a reporter to Seth's Eagle Scout ceremony. With their permission, Seth's essay was printed.

From there Seth was asked to speak. At first it was other scouting events. Then it was churches and then it was schools, civic organizations, and various governmental panels. Almost immediately there was a website and not long after a not for profit foundation.

Over time Edward bought them a stream-lined camper and they traveled as a family to Seth's engagements. Edward supplied the confidence that Seth could do this. He knew first-hand how over-whelming it could be to stand in front of all those up-turned faces and be 'the voice in the room,' 'the voice of hope,' he said. So Seth was never alone, even when Bella could not leave the camper because of little Jane, he made sure Seth was always supported. And over time Seth grew comfortable speaking before crowds. His fear got out of the way and he was free to speak his heart.

And every time they were out, Edward made sure they had fun, saw the country, didn't live twenty-four-seven in the gravity, the sadness, the pain. There was a rhythm, he said, a Sabbath woven in to life. It was one of the rules, he said, one of the things they couldn't ignore. They had to nurture joy.

But try as Edward did to stay in the background it was only a matter of time before he was drafted alongside Seth, front and center. Seth liked to remind him about the burning bush. He used that analogy so many times Edward said in his case it was more of a forest fire. He wouldn't consider going deeper in without Bella's blessing. "You have to do it," she said. "It's always been your gift. It's time."

For Edward the return to this gap in humanity's wall was surrender. This call to serve lit up his path and chose him and he kicked off his shoes, his own ideas, his life had never been his own. God he might ignore, but not when he used Bella. Not when he used Seth. Those were the voices that pierced him, God's flesh and blood, oh He was good, that old man in the sky, Edward said.

When Bella thought of the three of them, the paths they had taken, the convoluted twists and turns, the death, the near death, the running away, the struggle to trust, she knew her family was the embodiment of everything Edward and Seth had to say. That's what gave their words so much power-they were the living essay. They were the overcomers…the broken miracles…the testifiers…the contradictions to hate….the breakers of evil's fury.

She had been a woman…on the beach. She had seen his approach and had strolled, casually, her heart thudding, her breaths quick, and then…then he had given his name. "I'm Edward Cullen."

He was her hope…and her prayer.

And she'd leapt…and grown wings….and they'd landed…redeemed.

And now they were spreading it around.

The End


End file.
